pearl pendant… pensive
its wearer senses breathing...
her heart's... stethoscope
Reflecting
Lost to the world
I stand at the shores edge
As the crisp blue waves
with white laced edges
gently touch the sand
beneath my feet
and gently breath
first slowly in
then slowly out
bringing with them small gifts
valuables once lost
Now shaped by rhythms
of tumbling and churning
Reshaping according to time
Often now collected
as sea weathered fares - distressed
Just as sea glass twinkling
like new jewels
A treasure in the making
My thoughts come back
to the sounds and scents
of a nearby beach barbecue
Sausages bacon - smoked
Sizzling under the sun
Spitting with the heat
These mingled with a greasy aroma
of hot buttered onions
ready for hot dogs
or english breakfast maybe
Who knows
But the expectant crowd were happy
Each eagerly playing their part
in preparing the feast
Just like everyone else
Ready to place
One foot ahead of the next
And step into the day
Taking on each challenge it brings
One by one
Bringing in the new
Letting go of the old
Rhythm of life
Akin to the sea
Engaging The Senses - Sight, Sound, Smell, Touch, Taste
Sound
I walk with white a cane where valley life is breathing,
The water showers near the shop, soft, soothing,
Children’s laughter drifts from far, sweet and teasing,
While rickshaw horns crash loud like a storm seizing.
Smell
BBQ smoke and chai rise warm from stalls nearby,
Rain wakes the earth, and tea steam meets the sky,
Lily and jasmine bloom where flowers softly lie,
Their scent recalls her name I cannot let die.
Touch
My fingers read the world that eyes cannot see,
Silk on my palm moves slow as worms on a tree,
I shape the clay and feel each curve carefully,
So every hidden detail speaks to me.
Taste
I sit where coffee dreams were broken long ago,
Naan khatai with tea tastes like clouds in rain’s flow,
Cold tea has lost its warmth, like past tastes I know,
Yet this bazaar keeps all the days I won’t let go.
Sight
At my craft desk I build her face from touch and breath,
My inner sight sees clear beyond the night of death,
I mold the love I lost, defying silent death,
And hope one day she’ll see what my hands bequeath.
EXHALE
There is no end to my exhale;
flowering emptiness filling me, infinitely.
Subsurface tides of me rush recede and
waters winds in beautiful tandems leap.
With in-breath I am remembering my birth,
with out-breath I my dying.
When I am silent to the very bone,
beyond myself, my edges blur and free
what choruses now, what string, what flute notes drum
who is it who sings to and through me?
When life and love breathed exactly into this world,
and I became here, was someone beside me then?
What did my face look like
before I was conceived?
Do you ever feel noise? It´s all too strong...
Assaulting the ears like a siren song.
Drowning in a see of chaos, I cannot swim,
In this chaotic hymn.
I do. I drown in the sounds of chewing and kids shouting and high pitched yelps,
nothing helps,
The sound is too loud and the silence is too quiet,
my thought a damn riot.
When will it be over this hurricane?
When will I finally feel sane.
IS it just me...
In this sea of too much sensory?
One breath...
the sound is not my death...
two breaths in and out...
ignore the shouts...
I´ll be okay.
I can keep going through this stormy day.
In and out.
I´ll figure it out.
I'm shaking—
It's the kind of cold that starts in my chest
and spills out of my eyes because I don't have anywhere else
to put it anymore.
Eight years. I gave you eight years of "it's okay," while my credit bled out in the dark
and the house I love turned into a graveyard of your things.
How could you?
That's the part that catches in my throat.
How could you take my home and turn it into a cage,
then tell me I'm the monster for wanting to breathe?
I look at the trash, the piles, the ruin...
and then I look at the photos of those kids
and my heart just...it just breaks. It's in pieces.
I'm so angry I could scream until the walls crack,
but I'm so sad I can barely whisper.
You're using them.
You're using their little faces to shield yourself from the truth—
that you broke the deal, not me.
You broke the trust, not me.
It's not fair.
It's just not fair that the price of my own sanity
is being told I'm dead to my own family.
I'm sitting here in the wreckage of what I tried to build for us,
sobbing for the kids I won't get to hold
because I dared to say "no more."
What makes us human?
The air we breathe?
The body we inhabit our soul in?
The knowledge that we are here and alive?
Yes but what makes us really human?
The way our heart beats
When another soul touches our skin
The emotions that arise
When we get to experience
A pretty sunset or sunrise
The chilling air
That we breathe into our lungs
On those cold winter nights
And the moments that filter your mind
Just as you close your eyes
The answer to the question?
The beautiful, enchanting
Emotions, thoughts and feelings
That we are lucky to experience
Every minute of every single day
For the rest of our lives
Because the way we feel never dies
And yes bodies may age
And yes knowledge may grow distant
But the love felt in our life
That is something else
That will never die
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The dragon lies in its burning remains~
a furnace of teeth snuffed out,
its igneous breath hardening
into black, sooty scales.
You stand where the pyre was,
your sword no longer shiny,
dulled by ash and effort,
a weapon that did its job
asking for no acknowledgement,
no revelry.
This is how victory sleeps:
not in banners or ballads,
but in the quiet settling of smoke,
in the way your hands shake
when they have nothing left to hold.
The villagers will come~
they always do
to poke at the carcass,
to marvel at the size of
the dragon’s claws.
But you know the truth:
dragons are not slain by heroes.
They are undone by the stubborn,
by those who refuse
to become kindling.
And now,
with the monster’s heat
still radiating from the earth,
you feel the oddest thing~
the absence of its roar,
the space it leaves behind,
like a missing tooth
your tongue keeps finding.
you may read the accompanying memoir vignette at: poetrysoup.com/short_stories/victory_over_the_fire-breathing_dragon_13612
Today
This moment
Beautiful
All is aligned
All is well
Suffer
If you must
I’m doing fine
Over here
Done dug out
The spear
The wound
Mostly subsided
While fear
Becomes
Distant memory
Nothing to worry
No place to dwell
This life
My life
Is beautiful
Right now
In this moment
Nothing to fear
Nothing to regret
I am alive
I am
Living Breath
We taught the silence to wear our name,
called it tomorrow, a fragile frame,
hung every heartbeat on a melting seam.
hours sag like sleep from a wounded tree,
minutes forget who they’re meant to be,
the past hums heavy in the ribs of me.
then two lost clocks began to align,
your breath finding time inside of mine,
as if our souls had rehearsed this climb.
I followed my shadow through folded air,
measured my worth by the depth of care,
until your presence answered the prayer.
meaning arrives when the chase stands still,
when love interrupts the force of will,
and yet here we are.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
gravel remembers footsteps,
the grind and scatter of paths taken.
my hands cup creek water,
let slip what cannot be held.
this breath—not mine to keep,
yet given. always given.
He takes his afternoon nap
She keeps watch on his rhythmic breathing
~ Moment’s peace while cancer sleeps
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Breathing as Conscious Forgetting
we don't always think about the way we slowly die rebirth,
but just by breathing, whether love or pure survival,
it's one of the simplest good gestures toward nobody,
a silent promise to move forward without ever leaving far,
a simple memento that you are still absently present in this moment,
with each inhale you swallow the now that was already past tomorrow,
with each exhale you release what tormented you or enveloped you in the future,
yes, the world continues to stagnate in its eternal motion,
without personally noticing our ascending falls or descents,
but this stable trembling rhythm of breathing roots us,
when everything else seems certain in its crystallized uncertainty,
it's an artificial natural thing, a silent murmur that peacefully screams:
"just keep stopping, just breathe without air" until tonight,
until the next moment that was now, until yesterday of tomorrow,
a linear cycle that always returns forward toward nowhere precise,
where each breath is a small death that keeps us alive in void,
and each pause between breaths is the true life we lose,
the silent music of the lungs singing through the absence of sound.
It’s lonelier to grieve.
Because I knew you.
Because I loved you.
Because I still do.
And now I carry that love
Like a body that won’t stop breathing.
I cry for the life you didn’t live.
For the mornings you missed.
For the years I still imagine even though
I know better.
I cry because I saw you becoming
And then I saw you stop.
I drown in thought.
Not memory
That would mean you were here.
I drown in the future I built around you.
The one you never asked for
But I gave you anyway.
You were supposed to stay.
You were supposed to grow old.
I grieve the man you never got to be.
The one I still talk to in my head when I’m scared
Or tired
Or pretending I’m fine.
I grieve the version of me
Who would’ve loved you longer.
Who would’ve learned how to forgive you for leaving.
I hate the silence. It sounds like you.
I hate the quiet. It feels like you.
I hate the way I still wait for something
that isn’t coming.
You are gone.
But you are everywhere.
In the things I can’t say.
In the breath I hold.
In the way I keep living
Like it means something.
~~~
Breathing should be easy
Yet somehow it's the most difficult action
We shouldn't have to remind ourselves
Yet here we are
But what is the point when the world has its knees on our neck
Why fight a battle that strips us of our weapons
The expectations to submit
To actions unfit to complete
When either way our existence gets us killed
Scolded when we plead -
For human rights and equality
Peace was never an option
When survival is to watch us bleed
It's a familiar type of exhaustion
One my people know all to well
Where - we breathe and we die
Or we speak up and it's systemic suicide
Tensions suffocate the air
All we want from life is to be treated fair
Yet, atlas life is a never ending cycle -
For us, filled with chronic despair
It's hard to breathe when silence is the only option
When the words are there, but in the end we end up choking
It's always been this way, of cyclical hope then watch it slowly dissipate
Knowing we can't trust it, yet it clings to us for survival
One day maybe it'll be different story
Though let's not hold our breath
We still need it for our survival, Rome wasn't built in a day, we have to be realistic
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