We stood outside the building by the smoking area. You leaned against the railing,one boot hooked around the bar at the bottom. Every few seconds a car passed and your eyes tracked it without your head moving. You kept your hands busy— took your phone out, put it back, rubbed your thumb along the edge of the case like you were checking for a seam. When someone laughed behind us, you flinched just enough to notice, then nodded as if nothing happened. You told me about work. About nothing in particular. While you talked, a delivery truck backfired down the street. You stopped mid-sentence, jaw tight, waited a beat, then finished the thought like the pause hadn’t been there. At one point you asked what time it was. I answered. You checked your watch anyway. When we said goodbye, you shook my hand twice— once firm, then again, lighter, like you’d forgotten to let go. You walked to your car, scanned left, scanned right, opened the door, and only then exhaled.

Sorry I've been absent, my husband Chuck had that stroke on March 23rd and I've been helping him with therapy and rehab. Also we are moving from North Fort Myers FL, to New Brighton, PA (to be closer to family) and let me tell ya, between his shoulder surgery on March 13th, stroke March 23rd and my double hernia it is a challenge!!! We are actually selling everything that won't fit in our Mustang convertible and Mitsubishi Outlander. Anyways... I'm done babbling, I missed ya'll and am going to somehow try to catch up on all this amazing poetry that everyone has written!! I'm also gonna try to get back to writing, I miss it so much!

I didn’t leave right away. That’s the part no one talks about. There’s a moment before goodbye that isn’t dramatic. No raised voices. No slammed doors. Just stillness. I sat there longer than I should have. Long enough for the room to keep breathing without me. Long enough to notice the dust on the windowsill, the way the light leaned but didn’t ask anything. People think leaving is impulsive. That goodbye comes from panic or anger. But most of the time, it comes after a long apprenticeship in silence. I had already stayed a thousand times. Stayed while explaining less. Stayed while shrinking my needs into something manageable. Stayed while convincing myself that endurance was the same as love. Stillness teaches you things. It shows you what moves toward you and what only responds when pressed. I sat still long enough to realize that nothing was reaching back. That the quiet wasn’t peace. It was absence with good manners. Goodbyes aren’t always betrayals. Sometimes they’re acknowledgments. A way of saying, “I finally listened to what this was asking of me.” I didn’t leave in a hurry. I didn’t leave to punish anyone. I left because staying had started to cost me my own voice. Jesus didn’t rush His goodbyes either. He lingered. He ate with them. He washed feet. He sat at tables knowing the ending. He didn’t confuse proximity with faithfulness. He knew when love had done all it could in one form and had to be entrusted to God in another. Before I said goodbye, I sat still long enough to tell the truth without drama. And when I finally stood up, it wasn’t escape. It was obedience to what had already been made clear in the quiet.

Dear Ghost in the Room You don’t announce yourself. You never did. You live in the corners in the pause before I sit down, in the chair I don’t choose, in the way my body still orients around something that isn’t there anymore. You aren’t memory exactly. You’re residue. The afterimage of what once had power over me. The echo that stays even after the sound is gone. I used to think you meant something was wrong that your presence was a sign I hadn’t healed enough, hadn’t prayed hard enough, hadn’t let go correctly. But I’m learning something quieter. You linger because you mattered. Because something real passed through here and left a shape. That doesn’t mean you still get to rule the room. There was a time when you decided everything where I stood, what I said, how small I made myself to keep the peace. Back then, I mistook endurance for obedience. Silence for wisdom. Disappearing for faith. You benefited from that confusion. But I’m not gone anymore. I sit where I want now. I speak at my own pace. I leave lights on. I open windows. And when you show up, I don’t flinch. I don’t argue either. I acknowledge you then return my attention to the weight of my body in the chair, to breath moving in and out, to the fact that I am still here. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” (Psalm 23:4) It doesn’t say the shadow disappears. Only that it no longer gets the final word. So yes you still linger. But so do I. And this room is learning the difference.

"The Stone They Threw Away" They see a broken man with a twisted mind, But God don't build with the perfect kind. Nah, He flips the script, rewrites the plot— Uses the shattered for battles they forgot. They look at my scars like proof I'm done, But God sees a warrior molded by the Son. They call me damaged, say I’m off-track— But I’m walkin’ with purpose they can’t hack. See, God been usin' broken vessels from day one, Ain’t nobody in them pages who ain’t come undone. Moses had a stutter, ran from the call, David was a shepherd who took down a wall. Elijah was depressed, prayed to die alone, Yet fire fell when he spoke from the throne. Paul was a killer, stone cold and feared, Then wrote half the Word once his soul got cleared. So don’t come at me with your judgment eyes, You don’t see the tears I cried under dark skies. You don’t know the hell I fought through and won— While prayin’ to God with a broke heart and a gun. Yeah, my mind’s seen chaos, been bruised by the world, But still, I rise with my soul unfurled. 'Cause God ain't lookin’ for the polished and clean, He walks with the ones who’ve seen what pain mean. He calls the addicts, the felons, the freaks, Turns outlaws to prophets who speak to the meek. He takes the stone the builders reject— Then lays it as the cornerstone they can’t neglect. You call me twisted—I call it refined, Fire baptized with a heavenly spine. You see a threat, I see redemption's flame, You see a loss, but God sees His name. I was thrown away like trash in the rain, But God picked me up and repurposed my pain. Now I speak life where they spoke death, Breathin’ truth with every breath I got left. This ain’t religion—it’s real, it's raw, It’s me and God, no mask, no law. I walk with the weight of the ones left out, The voices unheard, the souls filled with doubt. So when they point fingers and call me insane, I just smile, 'cause they ain't read my lane. God’s plan ain’t bound to their weak design— I’m proof He still crafts greatness from the decline.