Can't you hear my silent screams? They are so loud they echo in my dreams. Behind this face that carries a smile Lies a dark road that goes on mile after mile. My silent screams have been going on for years, But it always falls on so many deaf ears. How can they hear these silent screams in my mind? They can't hear my thoughts if I keep telling them I'm fine. What can I tell them? These silent screams carry no words. It's just feelings of sadness and darkness that come in its herds. How can I explain so people understand this? It's like walking around in a suffocating black mist. It's holding on to happiness like holding water in your hands. It just trickles between your fingers and disappears into the sands. I can't explain how this feels; it's so extreme, So I hold my mouth shut to cover my silent screams....

Trust is not a handshake. It is not words tossed cheap like pennies in a church jar hoping somebody mistakes noise for faith. Trust is the slow unlocking of a guarded rib cage. It is saying, “Here this is the part of me still bleeding,” and praying the other person doesn’t press their fingers into the wound. Trust is built in silence sometimes. In who stays. In who answers the phone at 2 a.m. In who remembers the things you never said out loud. It is fragile as old glass and stubborn as oak roots. Hard to earn. Easy to shatter. Nearly impossible to glue back together without seeing every crack. Some people wear trust like a costume for applause. Others carry it like a lantern through a storm, protecting the flame with both hands. And maybe that’s the tragedy of it the heart must risk itself every single time. Because no matter how many times life teaches us betrayal, we still ache to believe in somebody. We still leave the door unlocked for love. By Jason Strickland

Oh She is duskborn Patterned after the people who gave up On her Leaving a resolve of strength Leaving a faultline partition of pain But she breathes in, wildflower and July air She walks forward all the same Potted plants overflowing, calluses and the crime Of having too open a heart Blooming like dragon’s breath against the hearth Of a soul much like a mine shaft …Uncorked light feeds its way through And unbeknownst to most, Her passion for love is her greatest craft They wouldn’t know a freckle from a teardrop, Though… They don’t know what to do With you. Copyright ©️ Kimberly Virga 2026

My book is live!!!!!!!!!!!

There is a strange kind of silence that comes after everything falls apart. Not movie silence. Not peaceful silence. I mean the kind where the refrigerator hum sounds like a sermon, and the walls stare at you like they know you failed. Starting over from nothing is not brave in the beginning. It is humiliating. It is standing in the ruins of your own life holding a trash bag of what survived. It is selling things you once loved. It is eating cheap meals while pretending you are not scared. It is watching people disappear the second your usefulness does. And God the loneliness of rebuilding. Nobody applauds the foundation. They only celebrate the house after the lights come on. But there is something powerful about a person who learns to grow roots in scorched earth. A person who says, “I may have lost everything but I am not finished yet.” That kind of soul becomes dangerous. Because once you survive sleeping beside your broken dreams, once you learn how to rebuild with blistered hands and exhausted hope, fear loses its grip on you. You stop worshipping comfort. You stop begging for permission. You stop needing the world to believe in you first. And one morning, without even noticing, you realize the person staring back in the mirror is no longer the one who lost it all. It is someone new. Someone stronger. Someone quieter. Someone who understands that rock bottom is not a grave. It is a beginning. By Jason Strickland