destinylaharris

Tag: original poetry

  • 🖤 Between the Lines #12: Song of the Sirens

    There are some things you know are bad for you before you ever touch them.

    That doesn’t always stop you from wanting them.

    I think we like to imagine that once we’ve learned a lesson, we become immune to repeating it.

    Once you know what a red flag looks like, you’ll never walk toward one again.

    Once you’ve survived the fire, surely you’ll recognize the heat next time.

    Except people don’t really work like that.

    Sometimes you know exactly what something is—

    and it still sounds beautiful.

    That’s where this poem came from.

    Not from being unable to recognize danger.

    From recognizing it perfectly and having to decide whether you’re going to listen anyway.

    This is Song of the Sirens.

    Song of the Sirens

    He smiled like sin itself,
    and I forgot how to pray.

    Not because I stopped believing.

    Because some songs
    are louder than faith.

    They never tell you
    the Sirens don’t force anyone.

    They simply sing.

    The rest
    is a decision.

    I saw the rocks.

    I knew the stories.

    I knew how endings like this
    always ended.

    Bodies drifting.

    Dreams swallowed whole.

    Women like me
    mistaking hunger
    for destiny.

    Still—

    I stepped closer.

    There is something terrifying
    about wanting the thing
    you already know
    will undo you.

    Not because you’re foolish.

    Because loneliness
    has a remarkable way
    of making shipwrecks
    look like shorelines.

    His smile carried the same promise
    the sea always has.

    Come closer.

    You’ll finally understand.

    You won’t feel alone here.

    I almost believed him.

    Almost mistook
    being desired
    for being seen.

    Almost confused
    chemistry
    with safety.

    He smiled like sin itself,
    and somewhere in the distance
    the Sirens started singing.

    Not with voices.

    With possibility.

    With every version of my life
    that might have existed
    if I had ignored
    what my heart already knew.

    People think temptation
    looks like certainty.

    It doesn’t.

    It looks like curiosity.

    One more conversation.

    One more touch.

    One more reason
    to believe this time
    will be different.

    The ocean never asks
    for all of you at once.

    It takes you
    one step at a time.

    I stood at the water’s edge
    long enough
    to hear the music.

    Long enough
    to understand
    why sailors kept turning the ship.

    Long enough
    to know
    I wasn’t immune.

    Then I remembered—

    love had already taught me
    the difference
    between a lighthouse
    and a fire.

    One guides you home.

    The other only looks beautiful
    from far away.

    So I walked away.

    Not because the song stopped.

    It didn’t.

    I walked away
    because I finally understood

    that surviving

    sometimes sounds like

    leaving the music

    unfinished.

    Between the Lines

    This poem uses Sirens, but it isn’t really about Sirens.

    There’s no monster waiting on the rocks.

    No sailor tied to a mast.

    No literal song floating across the ocean.

    The Siren in this poem is possibility.

    It’s that dangerous little voice that asks:

    But what if?

    What if this one is different?

    What if I’m reading it wrong?

    What if I just stay a little longer?

    What if the thing that hurt me before could somehow become the thing that heals me now?

    And sometimes that question is enough to make us move closer to something we already know we should be walking away from.

    “They simply sing. The rest is a decision.”

    I really wanted this line in the poem because I didn’t want temptation to become something that happened to her.

    The Sirens aren’t dragging her into the ocean.

    She sees the rocks.

    She knows the stories.

    She understands exactly what could happen.

    And she still takes a step.

    That distinction matters.

    Because sometimes we talk about destructive patterns like we somehow lose all agency the second temptation appears.

    But there’s usually a space between hearing the song and reaching the rocks.

    Sometimes it’s tiny.

    Sometimes it’s painful.

    But it’s there.

    And that’s where the decision lives.

    “Loneliness has a remarkable way of making shipwrecks look like shorelines.”

    This is probably the line that sits closest to the center of the poem for me.

    Because loneliness changes perspective.

    Something doesn’t necessarily become safer just because you’re lonely.

    It can just start looking safer.

    Attention feels more meaningful.

    Chemistry feels more important.

    Being wanted starts feeling suspiciously similar to being understood.

    And suddenly something you would have recognized immediately from a distance begins looking like somewhere you could rest.

    That’s why the next lines matter too:

    Almost mistook
    being desired
    for being seen.

    Almost confused
    chemistry
    with safety.

    Those things are not interchangeable.

    Someone can want you without knowing you.

    You can have incredible chemistry with somebody who is terrible for you.

    Something can feel intense without being healthy.

    And sometimes learning that difference is expensive.

    Temptation doesn’t usually arrive screaming.

    I think we picture bad decisions as these huge dramatic moments.

    You stand at a crossroads.

    One path says GOOD IDEA.

    The other says THIS WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE.

    Then you knowingly choose disaster.

    😂

    Usually it’s much quieter than that.

    One more conversation.

    One more touch.

    One more reason
    to believe this time
    will be different.

    That’s how people end up farther into something than they ever planned to go.

    The ocean doesn’t ask for all of you at once.

    One step.

    Then another.

    Then another.

    Eventually you look behind you and realize the shoreline is much farther away than you thought.

    That part of the poem isn’t really about one person.

    It’s about patterns.

    The ways we negotiate with ourselves when we want something badly enough.

    The tiny permissions that become much bigger decisions.

    “I wasn’t immune.”

    I really like that she doesn’t walk away because she becomes stronger than the song.

    She doesn’t suddenly stop wanting it.

    She doesn’t stand at the water and think:

    Wow. I can’t believe I ever considered that.

    She understands why sailors turned their ships.

    She understands exactly why someone would keep listening.

    And she realizes she could too.

    There’s something more honest to me about that than pretending growth means temptation stops working.

    Sometimes growth is knowing:

    This could still get me.

    And making a different decision anyway.

    The lighthouse and the fire.

    love had already taught me
    the difference
    between a lighthouse
    and a fire.

    One guides you home.

    The other only looks beautiful
    from far away.

    This is the moment where the poem changes.

    Up until then, she is measuring the danger against desire.

    Then she remembers she has something else to compare it to.

    Not fantasy.

    Not possibility.

    Experience.

    She knows what it feels like when love is safe.

    And once you know that, intensity stops being quite as convincing.

    A fire can be beautiful.

    Warm.

    Mesmerizing.

    You can stare at it forever.

    That doesn’t mean you should walk into it.

    A lighthouse doesn’t ask you to burn.

    It helps you find your way home.

    Leaving the Music Unfinished

    The ending matters to me because the song never stops.

    I didn’t want it to.

    If the Sirens suddenly went silent, walking away wouldn’t mean very much.

    Of course she leaves if she no longer wants to stay.

    That isn’t the difficult choice.

    She leaves while she can still hear them.

    While possibility still exists.

    While some part of her still wonders what would happen if she took one more step.

    There’s no neat ending.

    No final conversation.

    No satisfying answer to every what if.

    She doesn’t stay long enough to learn how the story would have ended.

    And that’s the point.

    Sometimes we think closure means finishing something.

    Getting the answer.

    Having the conversation.

    Following it all the way through so we can finally know.

    But sometimes survival requires accepting that you are never going to know.

    Sometimes the safest ending is the one you deliberately refuse to finish.

    The song keeps playing.

    You just stop following it.

    Until next time,

    — Destiny

    P.S. Have you ever had to walk away from something even though part of you still wanted it? 🖤

  • 🖤 Between the Lines #11: What the Dead Keep

    I think one of the strangest things about grief is that you don’t always miss the huge moments first.

    Sometimes you miss the stupid little things.

    What flowers somebody hated.

    How slowly they drank their wine.

    The sound they thought was funny.

    The person you loved is gone, but Tuesday still happens.

    And I think that is really what this poem became about for me.

    Not refusing to let someone go.

    Not being unable to move on.

    Just the quiet, stubborn way love can keep making room for someone who is no longer physically there.

    Because there is a difference between accepting that someone died—

    and deciding that death gets to erase them.

    This is What the Dead Keep.

    What the Dead Keep

    Every night,

    someone leaves flowers
    on a grave

    whose name
    has long withered away.

    Not roses.

    She hated roses.

    He remembers that.

    Even now.

    Even after rain
    has eaten the letters
    from the stone

    and moss has filled
    what little remains.

    He brings lilies.

    Sometimes dahlias.

    Once,

    in the middle of winter,

    he walked three miles
    through snow

    with violets
    hidden beneath his coat

    so the frost
    wouldn’t touch them.

    By morning,

    they were frozen anyway.

    He came back
    the next night.

    He always comes back.

    The cemetery gate
    screams when he opens it.

    He never oils the hinge.

    She used to love
    that sound.

    Said it made the place
    feel haunted.

    He had laughed then.

    “It’s a cemetery.”

    She smiled.

    “Exactly.”

    Now,

    he would give anything

    to hear her laugh
    at him again.

    So every night,

    he kneels
    in the dirt.

    Pulls weeds
    from around the stone.

    Brushes dead leaves
    from her name.

    Runs his thumb
    through the shallow grooves

    as though touching
    the letters

    might somehow
    still count

    as touching her.

    Sometimes
    he talks.

    Nothing important.

    The neighbor
    finally cut down
    that awful tree.

    The roof leaks again.

    He burned dinner
    on Tuesday.

    The moon is full.

    He tells her
    the ordinary things

    because death
    already took
    everything else.

    He refuses
    to let it have

    Tuesday.

    Sometimes,

    he brings two glasses
    of wine.

    Pours hers
    into the earth.

    “You always drank too slowly.”

    The soil turns dark.

    He drinks alone.

    Years pass.

    The groundskeeper changes.

    Then changes again.

    Houses rise
    beyond the cemetery walls.

    Children become old enough
    to have children.

    People stop visiting
    the graves nearby.

    Photographs fade.

    Names disappear.

    Stone forgets
    what flesh once was.

    But every night,

    flowers.

    Fresh.

    Carefully cut.

    Placed beneath
    a name

    no living person
    seems to recognize.

    Eventually,

    people begin telling stories.

    A grieving husband.

    A ghost.

    A madman.

    A lover
    who cannot let go.

    They are wrong
    about one thing.

    He did let go.

    He let go
    of her hand

    the night
    it became too cold
    to hold him back.

    He let strangers
    carry her away.

    Let them close
    the coffin.

    Let dirt strike wood

    one handful
    at a time.

    He let go

    because the living
    are forced

    to do terrible things
    with their hands.

    But love—

    love was never buried.

    So tonight,

    he comes again.

    Slower now.

    His hands shake
    around a bundle
    of white lilies.

    He lowers himself
    beside her

    with more difficulty
    than he used to.

    His knees sink
    into wet earth.

    For a long time,

    he says nothing.

    Then he places
    the flowers down.

    Straightens each stem.

    Wipes a smear of mud
    from the stone.

    And rests his forehead
    against her name.

    “I’m tired, darling.”

    The cemetery
    does not answer.

    It never does.

    He smiles anyway.

    Small.

    Almost embarrassed.

    Like the young man
    who once stood
    on her doorstep

    holding flowers

    and trying desperately
    not to crush them.

    “Tomorrow, then.”

    He kisses
    two fingers

    and presses them
    to the stone.

    Then leaves.

    The gate screams
    behind him.

    Morning comes.

    The lilies remain.

    Then another night.

    And another.

    But no footsteps
    cross the cemetery.

    No hands
    clear the leaves.

    No voice
    complains about the weather.

    For the first time
    in sixty-three years,

    her grave

    is alone.

    Until spring.

    When the groundskeeper
    finds something strange.

    Two graves.

    Side by side.

    One stone
    so old

    its name has nearly
    disappeared.

    The other,

    new.

    And growing
    between them,

    where no one
    remembers planting anything,

    a cluster

    of white lilies.

    Between the Lines

    This poem looks like a ghost story.

    There’s an old cemetery.

    A screaming gate.

    A disappearing name.

    A man who comes every night for sixty-three years.

    Flowers growing between two graves at the end.

    But I don’t actually think this is a poem about ghosts.

    I think it’s about being remembered after the world has stopped remembering you.

    The stone is failing.

    Rain is eating the letters.

    Moss is filling the grooves.

    Eventually, nobody seems to know who the woman buried there even was.

    But he does.

    And not in some grand, romanticized way where she becomes perfect because she died.

    He remembers that she hated roses.

    That matters to me.

    He doesn’t bring her the flower people are supposed to bring the dead.

    He brings her flowers.

    Lilies.

    Dahlias.

    Violets he tries to protect from the snow even though they freeze anyway.

    He remembers her jokes.

    Her habits.

    The tiny things that made her a person.

    Death gets the body.

    Time gets the photograph.

    Weather eventually gets the name carved into stone.

    But he keeps the details.

    “He refuses to let it have Tuesday.”

    This might be my favorite part of the whole poem.

    Because grief is usually written around the enormous things.

    The funeral.

    The final goodbye.

    The empty side of the bed.

    The anniversary.

    But losing someone also means losing the person you would have told about Tuesday.

    The roof leaked.

    The neighbor finally cut down the tree.

    You burned dinner.

    Nothing important happened.

    And you still would have told them.

    He keeps bringing her the ordinary life she would have been part of.

    Death already took the things he couldn’t stop it from taking.

    He isn’t giving it the mundane stuff too.

    Not Tuesday.

    “A lover who cannot let go.”

    That is what people eventually decide he is.

    But they’re wrong.

    He did let go.

    Literally.

    And I think this is probably the hardest part of the poem for me:

    He let go

    because the living
    are forced

    to do terrible things
    with their hands.

    There is something cruel about how physical death is for the people left behind.

    Someone has to release the hand.

    Someone has to let strangers take the body.

    Someone has to close the coffin.

    Someone has to leave the cemetery.

    His continuing to love her afterward does not mean he failed to accept that she died.

    He knows she is dead.

    The poem never gives him an answer.

    “The cemetery does not answer. It never does.”

    He just doesn’t believe acceptance requires forgetting.

    And neither do I.

    “Tomorrow, then.”

    By the time he comes for the last time, he is old.

    His hands shake.

    His knees hurt.

    Everything around him has changed.

    But he is still carrying white lilies.

    Then, for a moment, he becomes that young man again—

    standing on her doorstep with flowers and trying not to crush them.

    I love that image because sixty-three years disappear for a second.

    Then he says:

    “Tomorrow, then.”

    And there isn’t one.

    Not for him.

    That hurts me more than some huge final goodbye ever could.

    Because most people don’t know when something is the last time.

    The last conversation.

    The last ordinary Tuesday.

    The last see you tomorrow.

    Sometimes you only realize afterward that tomorrow belonged to somebody else.

    And then there are the lilies.

    I deliberately don’t explain them.

    Maybe somebody planted them.

    Maybe they grew there naturally.

    Maybe it is coincidence.

    Maybe it is something else.

    I don’t really care.

    For sixty-three years, he carried flowers to her.

    Then he dies.

    And in spring, flowers grow between them.

    Not on her grave.

    Not on his.

    Between.

    I don’t need that ending to prove an afterlife.

    I just like the idea that after all those years spent crossing the distance between the living and the dead, the poem ends with something quietly growing in the space that separated them.

    What the Dead Keep

    Maybe that’s what we really keep when somebody dies.

    Not the person.

    We don’t get that choice.

    We keep fragments.

    Habits.

    Private jokes.

    Things they hated.

    Things they would have laughed at.

    The stupid ordinary details that don’t sound important until suddenly they are all you have left.

    The stone eventually forgets her.

    The world mostly does too.

    He doesn’t.

    And then eventually, he is gone as well.

    But for one spring—

    white lilies grow between them.

    Maybe nobody visiting that cemetery knows why.

    Maybe nobody remembers either of them.

    But something is still there.

    And maybe that is as close as any of us get to staying.

    Until next time,

    — Destiny

    P.S. If someone you loved were gone, what ordinary little thing about them do you think you’d be most afraid of forgetting? 🖤

  • Between the Lines #10: The Siren Who Could Not Sing

    There are some poems that start with an idea.

    And then there are some that quietly become about something much bigger while you’re writing them.

    The Siren Who Could Not Sing started with a simple question:

    What happens to a siren who can’t sing?

    Not one whose voice was stolen.

    Not one who eventually discovers some hidden, magical song.

    Just—

    a siren who cannot do the one thing everyone says a siren is supposed to do.

    And the more I sat with that idea, the less this poem became about sirens.

    Because I think a lot of us know what it feels like to live inside an expectation we were never able to meet.

    The Siren Who Could Not Sing

    They knew something was wrong
    the first time I opened my mouth
    and the sea stayed still.

    No sailors turned their heads.

    No ships changed course.

    No man forgot
    the name of the woman
    waiting for him at home.

    Nothing happened.

    My sisters sang
    and entire oceans
    leaned closer.

    I sang—

    and heard only
    the small, broken sound
    of breath.

    A siren
    without a voice.

    There are cruelties
    even mythology
    doesn’t prepare you for.

    To be born
    with a name
    that promises something

    your body
    cannot give.

    They tried to teach me.

    Again.

    Again.

    Breathe deeper.

    Try harder.

    You aren’t trying.

    As though effort
    could grow music
    inside a throat
    that had never learned
    how to hold it.

    Eventually,

    they stopped asking me
    to sing with them.

    That hurt more.

    I would sit
    on the rocks
    and watch my sisters

    become everything
    we were created to be.

    Beautiful.

    Terrible.

    Unavoidable.

    Their songs
    crossed miles of water.

    Mine couldn’t cross
    my own lips.

    So I became useful
    in other ways.

    I watched the horizon.

    Counted ships.

    Collected what the ocean
    returned.

    Learned the names
    of constellations
    because stars
    never asked me
    to perform.

    Still,

    I hated them sometimes.

    My sisters.

    Not because
    they could sing.

    Because they never had
    to wonder

    who they would be
    if they couldn’t.

    Do you know
    what it does to you

    to lose something
    everyone insists
    is the reason
    you exist?

    You start believing
    absence
    is the same thing
    as failure.

    You start introducing yourself
    with an apology.

    You start thinking

    almost

    is another word
    for worthless.

    Then one night,

    a ship broke apart
    against the rocks.

    There had been no song.

    No seduction.

    Only a storm
    with no interest
    in who deserved
    to survive it.

    A sailor washed ashore.

    Alive.

    Barely.

    He looked at me
    and begged,

    “Please.”

    I opened my mouth.

    Nothing.

    Of course.

    So I didn’t sing.

    I pulled him
    from the water.

    Stayed beside him
    until morning.

    And when he woke,

    he didn’t ask
    why I had no song.

    He didn’t ask
    what kind of siren
    couldn’t lure a man
    to his death.

    He only said,

    “You saved me.”

    I had never heard
    those words before.

    All my life,

    I had been taught
    that a siren’s power

    was measured
    by how many people
    she could make
    follow her voice.

    No one ever told me

    there might be power
    in refusing
    to let someone drown.

    My sisters still sing.

    The sea still listens.

    Ships still tremble
    when their voices
    cross the water.

    And me?

    I am still silent.

    Some things
    do not grow back
    just because
    we finally understand
    their absence.

    But I no longer
    open my mouth
    and wait for music

    to prove
    I belong here.

    I am a siren.

    Not despite
    the silence.

    Not because of it.

    I simply am.

    And perhaps
    the cruelest thing
    they ever taught me

    was that the thing
    I was missing

    was the thing

    that made me

    whole.

    The part of this poem that sits heaviest with me isn’t actually the silence.

    It’s this:

    You aren’t trying.

    Because how many times do we say some version of that to people?

    Try harder.

    Push yourself.

    Everybody else can do it.

    You just need to practice.

    You just need to want it badly enough.

    As though effort is some magical currency we can exchange for ability.

    As though wanting something badly enough guarantees our bodies, our minds, or our circumstances will cooperate.

    Sometimes they don’t.

    And sometimes the cruelest thing you can do to someone who is already struggling is convince them that their inability is proof they didn’t try hard enough.

    The siren spends years believing there must be something wrong with her because everyone around her possesses the thing she is missing.

    Her sisters don’t even have to think about singing.

    They simply open their mouths—

    and the world responds.

    Meanwhile, she keeps trying to become something that was never going to happen.

    And I think comparison hurts the most when you’re comparing yourself to people who have never had to question the thing you’re fighting so hard to become.

    They don’t know what it feels like to sit on the rocks and watch.

    They don’t know what it feels like to be almost what everyone expected.

    They don’t have to wonder:

    Who am I if I can’t do the thing everyone says makes me who I am?

    That question is the real heart of this poem.

    Because we attach identity to things constantly.

    A good mother does this.

    A successful person looks like this.

    A strong person handles things this way.

    A woman should be this.

    A man should provide that.

    A writer should write like this.

    A body should be able to do that.

    And when we don’t fit whatever definition we were handed?

    We start shrinking ourselves around the missing piece.

    We introduce ourselves with an apology.

    We explain ourselves before anyone even asks.

    We start treating different like it means defective.

    That’s why I didn’t want her voice to magically appear at the end.

    I could have done that.

    The sailor could have awakened, she could have opened her mouth, and suddenly some beautiful song could have poured out.

    It would have been neat.

    Hopeful.

    Very fairy-tale.

    And I would have hated it.

    Because then the poem would still be saying she needed the song.

    She would simply have suffered long enough to finally earn it.

    No.

    She never sings.

    The thing she cannot do at the beginning is still something she cannot do at the end.

    Because sometimes healing doesn’t give you back what you lost.

    Sometimes acceptance doesn’t fix anything.

    Sometimes understanding yourself better does not magically change the thing you had to learn to live without.

    And you are still allowed to be whole.

    That’s why this part matters so much to me:

    I am a siren.

    Not despite
the silence.

    Not because of it.

    I simply am.

    Not despite.

    Because even that can become another kind of cage.

    Look how successful she became despite this.

    Look how strong she is despite that.

    Look what she accomplished even though she is missing something.

    Sometimes I think we become so obsessed with turning every difference into an inspirational story that we accidentally keep reinforcing the idea that there was something wrong with the person to begin with.

    She doesn’t need to become extraordinary because she cannot sing.

    She doesn’t need her silence to become a superpower.

    She doesn’t need to prove that losing one thing gave her something better.

    She is simply a siren.

    Full stop.

    And then there’s the sailor.

    All her life, she has been told that a siren’s power is measured by destruction.

    How many sailors turn their ships.

    How many men follow the voice.

    How many bodies the ocean takes.

    Then someone finally looks at her and says:

    You saved me.

    And suddenly the definition of power changes.

    Maybe the thing everyone around you values isn’t actually the thing that deserves to be valued.

    Maybe being good at what your world rewards doesn’t automatically make that thing good.

    Maybe you can spend your entire life believing you failed a test without ever stopping to ask:

    Who wrote the test?

    Our silent siren cannot lure sailors toward the rocks.

    But when one reaches them anyway—

    she pulls him out.

    And for the first time, she understands that she was measuring herself with a ruler she never chose.

    That might be my favorite thing hiding between these lines.

    She doesn’t finally become the siren everyone expected.

    She stops needing to.

    And I think there is an enormous difference between the two.

    Maybe becoming whole isn’t always about finding the missing piece.

    Maybe sometimes it’s realizing you were never a collection of missing pieces in the first place.

    Until next time,

    —Destiny

    P.S. Have you ever spent so much time trying to become who you thought you were supposed to be that you forgot to ask who you actually were?

  • 🧠 Brain Static #11: Crows Have Receipts

    Here’s an unnecessary fact for your Monday:

    Crows can remember human faces. For YEARS.

    Researchers at the University of Washington wore specific masks while capturing and banding crows. Later, the birds still reacted angrily to people wearing the “dangerous” masks—and other crows could learn that those faces were bad news just by watching the original crows react. 

    So basically…

    If you piss off a crow, you might not have just made one enemy.

    You may have created a whole little bird gossip network.

    Imagine walking outside and getting screamed at by a crow you have never met because his aunt told him you were an asshole in 2012.

    Absolutely not. 😂

    Anyway, be nice to crows.

    I do not have the emotional bandwidth for a multigenerational bird vendetta.

    You’re welcome for the unnecessary information. 🖤

    Until next time,

    -Destiny

    P.S. Be honest—if a crow started screaming at you every time you went outside, how long would it take before you started apologizing to it? 😂

  • 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?