These Who Are Not My Children

“I’m Forced to Be What They See”

They hand me a mask

and call it my face,

pressing it tight

like I was born wearing it.

They script my lines

before I open my mouth,

then act surprised

when I tear the page in half.

I am not their shorthand,

their shortcut,

their story told in one word.

I am the whole sky —

and they keep trying

to fold me into a box.

They carve a silhouette

and swear it’s my reflection,

never noticing

how the edges don’t fit.

I walk with the  weight

of names I never chose,

shadows I never cast,

stories I never lived.

 Still, I rise in my own outline,

soft where they expect steel,

wild where they expect calm,

true where they expect myth.

I am not the mold

they keep pressing me into.

I am the hand...

What’s the “Tea”?

The truth you sip slow,

the rumor you stir twice,

the heat that fogs the glass

before the words even land.

Some stories don’t spill—

they steam.

 The kind that burns tongues

and exposes intentions.

The kind whispered in corners

but felt in the room.

Say it plain—

truth tastes better

when it’s not watered down.

 What’s the “Tea”?

A quiet pour of honesty,

warm and unhurried.

A confession wrapped in steam,

floating between us

like a secret deciding

whether to be spoken.

Voodoo Palms

Under the voodoo palms,

the air hums with secrets—

old magic curling like smoke

around the roots.

Every breeze is a whisper,

every shadow a warning,

every heartbeat a drum

calling something ancient

back to life.

Voodoo palms don’t just sway—

they watch.

They hold the heat,

the hush,

the half?truths you tried to bury.

Step beneath them

and the night leans in,

asking what you came to conjure

and what you’re ready to lose.

Fire Under the Bridge

There’s fire under the bridge— not the kind that burns it down, but the kind that whispers, “I’m not finished.” Heat in the hush, anger with a pulse, truth that crawls back up your spine and dares you to cross anyway.

Framed in Shadows I Never Cast

They tried to shape my story

from the grain of their own assumptions,

carving silhouettes in dark tones

and calling them truth.

 But I am not the shadow they sketched in haste.

I am the warm weight of sun?washed stone,

the steady pulse of earth beneath bare feet,

the quiet glow of something real.

  Their whispers never fit my edges.

Their frames were too small, too brittle,

too far from the texture of my becoming.

 I rise from their outlines

like light slipping through cedar branches—

soft, certain, uncontained.

 I walk in colors they never bothered to see,

in a brightness they could not name,

crafted from my own hands,

my own history,

my own truth.

 Let them keep their shadows.

I am made of something older,

something honest,

so...

Where’s Your Witness

Where’s your witness…

when the truth sits heavy

and the room grows still?

 Who saw the way you carried it,

the weight no one named,

the strength you never claimed aloud?

 Sometimes the only witness

is the echo of your own heartbeat—

steady, certain,

refusing to lie…

Where’s Your Witness...

when life carves its marks into you—

soft grooves, deep lines,

stories etched like grain in wood?

Maybe it’s the wind that knows,

or the ground beneath your feet,

or the quiet spirit inside you

that’s been keeping score

since the beginning.<...

Crumbled

I didn’t fall all at once—

I came apart in quiet ways,

edges softening,

strength slipping grain by grain.

 But even in the ruin,

There’s a truth I can’t ignore:

what crumbles

can clear the ground

for something stronger

to rise. a gentler kind of resilience.

Not broken—

just crumbled

Pass The Passion

Pass the passion like sunlight through branches— soft, warm, and meant to be carried.

Let your fire touch another soul, the way a flame kisses wick and suddenly there’s more light than before.

This is how we grow: one inspired heart igniting the next.

In My Blues

My blues have edges like river?worn stone,

Smoothed by the years, carved by the unknown.

But a glint found its way through the cracks in the hue,

A warm little spark in a world colored blue.

 It’s the whisper of healing, the start of a muse —

A moment of sunlight

In my blues.

Break in My Blues

There’s a crack in the quiet where the light slips through,

A soft little shimmer in the shade of my blue.

I’ve carried storms in my chest, thunder stitched in my seams,

But today there’s a pause — a breath — a shift in the dream.

 It’s small, but it’s honest, this bright, gentle bruise.

A promise that even the heaviest hearts

Find a break in their blues.