destinylaharris

Tag: self reflection

  • Between the Lines #9: The Missing Second

    Some poems begin with a story already attached to them.

    This one didn’t.

    It started with one line:

    The clock skipped a tick
    and my heart skipped a beat.

    I liked the way those two things mirrored each other—the clock and the heart both missing something at exactly the same moment.

    But then I started thinking about the second itself.

    If the clock skipped it…

    where did it go?

    And what if it wasn’t actually empty?

    What if, somewhere between one tick and the next, time stopped long enough to show you everything that could still happen?

    That question became The Missing Second.

    The Missing Second

    The clock skipped a tick
    and my heart skipped a beat.

    For one second,

    time forgot
    what it was supposed to do.

    The room stopped breathing.

    The curtains hung
    perfectly still.

    The dust suspended itself
    in the sunlight

    like even gravity
    had been told

    to wait.

    And somewhere

    between one second
    and the next,

    I lived an entire life.

    I saw myself older.

    Laugh lines
    where worry used to live.

    Silver threaded
    through my hair.

    Hands that finally stopped
    apologizing
    for taking up space.

    I saw people
    I haven’t met yet.

    Rooms
    I’ve never entered.

    Photographs
    that haven’t been taken.

    I heard laughter
    belonging to voices

    I don’t know.

    Yet.

    I watched myself
    lose people.

    Find others.

    Break.

    Heal.

    Break again.

    I learned
    that some promises last.

    Some don’t.

    Some people leave
    without becoming villains.

    Some people stay
    without needing to become heroes.

    I forgave things
    I still swear
    I never will.

    I stopped waiting
    for apologies

    that were never coming.

    I looked into a mirror

    and recognized

    the woman

    looking back.

    For once,

    I didn’t ask her

    what was wrong with her.

    I asked

    if she was happy.

    She smiled.

    Then—

    tick.

    The curtains moved.

    The dust fell.

    The world continued

    as though nothing

    had happened.

    No one looked up.

    No one asked

    where I’d been.

    The clock simply moved

    from one second

    to another.

    But I couldn’t.

    Because somewhere

    inside the second

    that never existed,

    I had met

    every version of myself

    I could still become.

    And suddenly

    I understood

    why my heart

    had skipped too.

    For one impossible moment,

    it wasn’t afraid

    of running out of time.

    It had simply

    seen

    how much life

    could still fit

    inside it.

    Between the Lines

    For a poem about the future, I didn’t want The Missing Second to predict anything.

    There are no names.

    No specific places.

    No exact future waiting at the end of it.

    Instead, there are pieces.

    People I haven’t met.

    Rooms I haven’t entered.

    Photographs that haven’t been taken.

    Voices I don’t recognize.

    I think that’s what makes the future in this poem feel possible to me. It isn’t promising that everything works out exactly the way I want it to.

    Actually, it very specifically doesn’t.

    I lose people.

    I break.

    I heal.

    And then I break again.

    Because seeing an entire life inside that second wouldn’t mean seeing a perfect one.

    It would mean seeing a whole one.

    There’s a difference.

    Yet.

    There’s one tiny word sitting by itself in this poem:

    I heard laughter
    belonging to voices

    I don’t know.

    Yet.

    I gave “Yet.” its own line because I wanted it to interrupt the thought.

    “I don’t know” feels complete.

    “I don’t know yet” doesn’t.

    That one word leaves something open.

    Somewhere in the future could be a person I’ve never met who will eventually become impossible to imagine my life without.

    There could be a room I’ve never entered that someday feels like home.

    There could be a photograph I haven’t taken yet that someday becomes one I can’t look at without remembering everything surrounding it.

    I can’t know any of that from where I’m standing now.

    That’s the point.

    Yet.

    Not Everyone Has to Be a Villain or a Hero

    These are probably some of my favorite lines in the poem:

    Some people leave
    without becoming villains.

    Some people stay
    without needing to become heroes.

    I didn’t want the future life inside that second divided neatly between people who stayed and people who hurt me.

    Some people are only meant to exist in certain parts of our lives.

    Someone leaving doesn’t automatically erase everything that came before it.

    And someone staying doesn’t mean they have to save us.

    Sometimes people are simply part of the story for however long they’re part of it.

    I think there’s something peaceful about imagining a future where I understand that.

    The Woman Waiting Inside the Second

    Then there’s the mirror.

    Of everything that happens inside this enormous life squeezed into one impossible second, this is one of the quietest moments:

    I looked into a mirror

    and recognized

    the woman

    looking back.

    For once,

    I didn’t ask her

    what was wrong with her.

    I asked

    if she was happy.

    She smiled.

    She doesn’t tell me what happens.

    She doesn’t explain how I got there.

    She doesn’t warn me about anything coming.

    She just smiles.

    And I think I like it better that way.

    Because the missing second isn’t supposed to hand me a map of my future.

    It’s only supposed to show me that there is one.

    Then—Tick.

    The clock eventually has to move again.

    I knew from the beginning that whatever happened inside that second couldn’t follow the speaker back into the room.

    The curtains move.

    The dust falls.

    Nobody notices anything happened.

    The clock simply continues doing what clocks do.

    But the person watching it doesn’t return quite as easily.

    That’s why the opening line comes back in a different way at the end.

    At first:

    The clock skipped a tick
    and my heart skipped a beat.

    It sounds like something is wrong.

    By the end, we finally understand why the heart followed the clock.

    For one impossible moment,

    it wasn’t afraid

    of running out of time.

    It had simply

    seen

    how much life

    could still fit

    inside it.

    And that’s what this poem eventually became for me.

    It isn’t really about stopping time.

    It’s about having more of it.

    Not knowing how much.

    Not knowing what happens inside it.

    Not knowing who comes, who goes, what hurts, what heals, or who I’ll be when I reach the other side of all those years.

    Just knowing there are still blank spaces.

    There are still people I don’t know.

    There are still photographs that haven’t been taken.

    There are still versions of me I haven’t met.

    The clock is going to keep ticking either way.

    But maybe every once in a while, it’s worth remembering how much life can happen between one tick and the next.

    Until next time,
    —Destiny

    P.S. If time skipped one second and let you glimpse your future, would you look—or would you rather not know?

  • Between the Lines #8: Little Star

    Some poems start with an idea.

    Others start with a line you’ve known so long that you almost don’t hear the words anymore.

    “Twinkle, twinkle, little star…”

    It’s one of the first songs a lot of us learn as children. We sing it before we know what stars actually are. Before we understand distance. Before we understand that the light reaching us might have been traveling for years.

    And before we learn that sometimes, the thing we’re looking at may already be gone.

    That thought stuck with me.

    Because there’s something strangely human about that.

    So I followed it.

    And it got darker than the nursery rhyme. 😅

    Little Star

    Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

    I used to wonder
    what you are.

    Before I learned
    that some lights

    are already dead.

    That sometimes
    we spend our whole lives

    looking at something

    that disappeared
    centuries ago.

    No one tells children that.

    We point toward the sky
    and call it beautiful.

    Make wishes
    on burning things.

    Teach them
    to close their eyes

    and ask the universe

    for whatever
    their tiny hearts desire.

    I wonder

    how many wishes

    were sent

    to something

    that wasn’t there

    to receive them.

    Maybe that’s why
    mine never came true.

    I used to lie
    beneath my blankets

    and watch the stars
    through my window.

    I thought

    they were watching back.

    Guardians.

    Tiny holes in heaven

    letting the light through.

    I didn’t know yet

    that darkness

    was the natural state
    of things.

    That light

    had to fight

    just to reach us.

    Sometimes,

    I still look up.

    Not to wish.

    I stopped doing that
    a long time ago.

    Now I count

    the dead things

    still shining.

    One.

    Two.

    Three.

    There are too many.

    And I wonder

    how long

    a person can disappear

    before everyone else

    notices

    their light

    is only a memory.

    How many times

    have I smiled

    after something inside me

    had already gone dark?

    How many people

    have looked at me

    and thought,

    She’s doing so well.

    Because they were seeing

    light

    that left me

    years ago?

    Maybe we are all

    a little like stars.

    Carrying old versions
    of ourselves

    across impossible distances.

    Letting people

    make wishes

    on pieces of us

    that no longer exist.

    Twinkle, twinkle,

    little star.

    I finally know

    what you are.

    Proof

    that something

    doesn’t have to be alive

    for its absence

    to take years

    to reach us.

    Between the Lines

    What got me about the idea behind this poem wasn’t really the stars.

    It was the delay.

    The idea that light can keep traveling after its source has changed—or disappeared entirely.

    And I started thinking about how often people do that, too.

    There are versions of ourselves that other people continue to see long after we’ve stopped being them.

    Maybe they remember the version of you who tolerated things you don’t tolerate anymore.

    The version who trusted more easily.

    The version who was louder.

    Softer.

    Happier.

    More naive.

    Maybe they’re looking at who you were five years ago and assuming that person is still standing in front of them.

    And sometimes, it happens in reverse.

    Sometimes we’re the ones sending out old light.

    We smile.

    We go to work.

    We answer messages.

    We make jokes.

    We tell people we’re fine.

    And from where everyone else is standing, we might genuinely look fine.

    They aren’t necessarily ignoring what’s happening inside us.

    They may simply be seeing the light that reached them.

    That’s where the line—

    How many people
    have looked at me
    and thought,

    She’s doing so well.

    —came from.

    There’s something sad about realizing that someone can look directly at you and still be seeing an older version of you.

    But I don’t think Little Star is entirely about sadness.

    I think it’s also about change.

    We spend our lives leaving versions of ourselves behind.

    Some disappear quietly.

    Some take years to let go of.

    Some probably still exist in somebody else’s memory exactly as we were when they last knew us.

    And maybe that’s okay.

    Because the person I was isn’t necessarily gone just because I’m not her anymore.

    Some of her light made it here.

    I carry pieces of her.

    Other people carry pieces of her.

    And someday, the person I am right now will probably become another one of those distant versions too.

    Still visible.

    Still affecting something.

    Just no longer the whole story.

    Maybe that’s what I like most about the stars.

    We look up and think we’re seeing what is.

    Sometimes we’re actually seeing what was.

    And unless we look a little closer, we may never know the difference.

    Until next time,

    —Destiny

    P.S. Some things keep shining long after they’ve changed. Maybe people do, too.

  • Between the Lines #7

    The Dark

    I write about darkness a lot.

    Night.

    Shadows.

    Moonlight.

    Ghosts.

    The things that hide in corners and the things we carry where no one else can see them.

    If you’ve read much of my writing, you could probably assume I find some kind of comfort in the dark.

    And maybe sometimes I do.

    But then I wrote a poem that started with:

    I hate the dark.

    And I meant it.

    The Dark

    I hate the dark.

    It reminds me of myself.

    Not because I am cruel.

    Not because I was born
    wanting to swallow light.

    But because I’ve spent
    so much of my life
    learning how to survive
    where the sun
    couldn’t reach.

    People romanticize darkness.

    They give it stars.

    They give it moons.

    They write poems
    about how beautiful
    the night can be.

    They forget

    how cold it is.

    How quiet.

    How easy it is
    to mistake loneliness
    for peace.

    I know darkness intimately.

    I know the way
    it settles into a room
    before anyone notices.

    The way it convinces you
    that silence
    is the same thing
    as healing.

    The way it teaches you
    to become invisible
    just to make it
    through another day.

    I hate the dark.

    Because every time
    I walk into it,

    I meet another version
    of myself.

    The little girl
    who kept waiting
    for someone
    to come looking.

    The teenager
    who mistook hurting
    for relief.

    The woman
    who kept shrinking
    so other people
    could feel taller.

    They are all there.

    Patient.

    Waiting for me
    like ghosts
    that never learned
    how to leave home.

    Sometimes I wonder
    if Nyx recognizes me.

    If the goddess of night
    looks at me
    with something
    that almost resembles pity.

    Or maybe recognition.

    Maybe she knows
    that not everyone
    who carries darkness

    belongs to it.

    Maybe she knows
    there is a difference
    between becoming familiar
    with the night

    and calling it home.

    I hate the dark.

    Not because it reminds me
    of what I’ve survived.

    But because for so many years,

    I couldn’t tell

    where it ended—

    and where I began.

    Now,

    I’m learning
    the hardest thing
    I’ve ever had to learn:

    Darkness
    can shape you

    without defining you.

    And maybe

    that’s the first light

    I’ve ever trusted.

    I think sometimes we become so familiar with something that we stop realizing it isn’t supposed to feel like home.

    That can happen with sadness.

    With loneliness.

    With survival mode.

    With the parts of ourselves we built because, at the time, we needed them.

    Stay quiet.

    Don’t take up too much space.

    Don’t need too much.

    Don’t trust too easily.

    Keep going.

    Survive first.

    Feel it later.

    You do something long enough and eventually it stops feeling like something you do.

    It starts feeling like who you are.

    That’s the darkness in this poem.

    Not evil.

    Not something lurking beneath the bed.

    Not even necessarily sadness.

    Familiarity.

    That’s why I wrote:

    How easy it is
    to mistake loneliness
    for peace.

    There is a difference between being at peace and simply becoming accustomed to being alone with something.

    There is a difference between healing and going quiet.

    There is a difference between no longer talking about what hurt you and no longer being hurt by it.

    I think I’ve confused those things before.

    Maybe that’s why all those different versions of me are still standing in the darkness of this poem.

    The little girl.

    The teenager.

    The woman.

    None of them disappeared when the next one arrived.

    And I don’t think healing requires them to.

    They aren’t monsters that need to be defeated.

    They’re evidence.

    They existed.

    They survived.

    They became part of me.

    But being part of me isn’t the same thing as being all of me.

    That distinction became the most important part of this poem.

    And then there’s Nyx.

    The goddess of night herself.

    I didn’t want her to appear as something frightening. I didn’t even want her to save me.

    I wanted her to recognize me.

    Because who better to understand that carrying darkness doesn’t mean you belong to it than the night itself?

    Maybe she could look at someone who has spent years walking through darkness and understand something that person is only beginning to understand:

    there is a difference
    between becoming familiar
    with the night

    and calling it home.

    I think that might be my favorite idea in the poem.

    Because for a long time, I thought healing meant becoming someone untouched by the things that happened before.

    Someone lighter.

    Someone different.

    Someone who didn’t carry any of it anymore.

    I don’t think that now.

    Some things shape us permanently.

    There are things we survive that change the way we love, trust, react, protect ourselves, and move through the world.

    But being shaped by something doesn’t mean surrendering your identity to it.

    You can carry darkness without being dark.

    You can remember pain without living inside it.

    You can know the night intimately and still choose to walk toward morning.

    Maybe that’s why the poem doesn’t end with the darkness disappearing.

    It ends with light.

    Not sunlight.

    Not some enormous, blinding revelation.

    Just the smallest realization:

    Darkness
    can shape you

    without defining you.

    And maybe

    that’s the first light

    I’ve ever trusted.

    The darkness is still there.

    The difference is that now—

    I know where it ends and I begin.

    Until next time,

    —Destiny

    P.S. Maybe we don’t have to hate every version of ourselves that learned how to survive in the dark. Some of them are the reason we lived long enough to find the light. 🖤

  • Between the Lines #6

    When the Night Whispers Your Name

    There’s something unsettling about hearing your name when no one said it.

    Maybe you’re lying in bed.

    Maybe the house is completely quiet.

    And for half a second, you could swear someone called you.

    Not loudly.

    Just enough to make you stop.

    Listen.

    Maybe even look over your shoulder.

    That was the thought behind When the Night Whispers Your Name.

    At least, that’s where it started.

    Because somewhere while writing it, the person whispering stopped being a ghost.

    And started becoming me.

    When the Night Whispers Your Name

    When the night whispers your name,

    I pretend

    I didn’t hear it.

    I’ve learned

    that some voices

    don’t belong

    to the living.

    Not because they’re ghosts.

    Because memory

    has a remarkable way

    of learning

    how to breathe.

    The daylight

    is kinder.

    It fills empty rooms

    with enough noise

    that I can almost believe

    I’ve become someone else.

    But night—

    night has always

    known the truth.

    It remembers

    every version of me

    I’ve tried

    to outgrow.

    The child

    who mistook silence

    for safety.

    The teenager

    who carried storms

    inside her ribs.

    The woman

    who still apologizes

    before she takes up space.

    They all answer

    when the darkness calls.

    I don’t.

    At least,

    I tell myself

    I don’t.

    But there are evenings

    when I catch myself

    looking over my shoulder

    because I could have sworn

    someone

    just said my name.

    Softly.

    The way people do

    when they love you.

    Or miss you.

    Or mourn you

    before you’re gone.

    Maybe that’s what

    the night has been

    trying to tell me.

    Not that I’m haunted.

    That I have spent

    so many years

    running from myself

    that even my own name

    sounds unfamiliar

    when spoken

    with kindness.

    When the night

    whispers your name,

    listen carefully.

    It may not be

    calling you backward.

    It may be asking

    whether you’ve finally

    become brave enough

    to turn around

    and meet

    the person

    who has been searching

    for you

    all along.

    I think there are certain versions of ourselves we spend years trying to leave behind.

    Not necessarily because we hate who we were.

    Sometimes we just don’t want to remember what that version of us had to carry.

    So we grow.

    We change.

    We get older.

    We build lives around everything that happened afterward.

    And eventually, we start telling ourselves that person doesn’t exist anymore.

    But I don’t think it works like that.

    I think every version of us leaves something behind.

    The child.

    The teenager.

    The person who was scared.

    The person who was angry.

    The person who survived something they didn’t have words for yet.

    They don’t disappear just because we become someone else.

    And sometimes, when everything gets quiet enough, we hear them.

    That’s why I wrote:

    Because memory
    has a remarkable way
    of learning
    how to breathe.

    Memory can feel incredibly alive.

    A smell can bring back a room you haven’t stood in for years.

    A song can bring back a person.

    A sentence can bring back a feeling you thought you’d forgotten.

    And sometimes you can be sitting perfectly still in the present while some part of you is somewhere else entirely.

    That’s its own kind of haunting.

    But I didn’t want this poem to end there.

    Because When the Night Whispers Your Name isn’t really a poem about being haunted by who you used to be.

    It’s about finally turning around.

    There’s a line toward the end that I think holds the entire poem:

    That I have spent
    so many years
    running from myself
    that even my own name
    sounds unfamiliar
    when spoken
    with kindness.

    Sometimes we become so accustomed to criticizing ourselves that kindness feels suspicious.

    Sometimes we’re much better at extending grace to the people we used to be than the person we are right now.

    And sometimes the version of ourselves we’ve been trying so hard to escape isn’t chasing us at all.

    Maybe she’s just waiting to be acknowledged.

    Maybe she wants someone to finally look at her without shame.

    Maybe she wants to hear her own name spoken gently.

    So perhaps when the night whispers your name, you don’t always have to run from it.

    Sometimes you can turn around.

    Sometimes you can listen.

    Sometimes you might discover that the thing you thought was haunting you…

    was simply a piece of yourself waiting for you to come back.

    Until next time,

    — Destiny

    P.S. If you could sit down with one past version of yourself for five minutes, which version would you choose—and what would you tell them?