Sometimes I fear
I’ve never known you -
like a leaf might think
it knows its mother tree
from spring
to summer
to fall—
ing
into winter’s
cold, hard ground,
severed from the branches
that once nourished it.
Caught in a season
where familiarity
finds itself face to face
with formality,
and transition
resembles exile.
Maybe one day what is left of me
will sink deep enough
to find something I could never see
from the branches -
where darkness can decipher
whether I never knew you,
or whether knowing you
was never supposed to mean
I wouldn’t fall.
FOLLOW ME
By Frank Daub
I am sensing my dimensions.
That I have them, I am aware.
The challenge is in knowing.
The tragedy is to care.
Dimensions, definitions
limitations -- all.
The work is not to choose,
But prevent an entrapping wall.
Requirements? Only natural.
Before ending, to make a choice.
“Follow Me”, a haunting message
Follow Me – an eternal voice.
Sensing
Prejudice is a pendulum
that swings both ways-
I write,
not so much
for you to know,
as for me to tell...
Life isn't always a pattern,
Sometimes it's a Kaleidoscope!
Same Roof
We shared a roof, a table, the same four walls,
and still I lived on the far side of a door
no one had thought to knock on.
Their voices filled the house each morning,
familiar as the kettle, the taps, the stairs,
and none of it ever reached me.
I was in the room. I was not seen.
You can stand in a doorway for years
and be furniture to the people you love.
They were meant to be the ones who knew me
before I knew myself,
who could read the weather in my face.
Instead I learned to fold my heart small,
to keep it in a pocket
where no one would ask what it weighed.
I have grieved the things that happened.
That grief has edges. It has names and dates.
The other grief has none.
It is the hush where the conversation should have been,
the hand that never reached across,
the people I sat beside for years
and never met.
I was not only mourning what was done to me.
I was mourning the child who kept waiting to be known,
and the closeness
that never had its chance to exist.
Pastel pages turn and turn,
colour mix turning to burn.
Foster baby cries its first,
bursts of today taking its turn.
Every shade will have its season,
every fire will find its reason.
Blister pack locked it in,
soaking up packets of sin.
Last moments in the soup,
regaining a sense to recoup.
Hold the light against the glass,
let the colours drift and pass.
Nothing owed and nothing lost,
only the turning, only the cost.
Past the future round and round,
pure chaos in master the sound.
Beauty in the knowing.
Everything showing.
The pome was sweet
Never wanted to quit
Might've thought so
But never acted on it
Had a million seeds within
Each akin to some thought
Some were in the plates of others
Some were left inside to rot
Pome wanted to recite and sow
From poems to seeds it had
Had no column not a row
To write and hence the skin got bad
Pome was sweet red
Seeds were stiff white
Some had the juicy coverings
Some rotted and lost their might
It was sure just red pome
Not the granite deep in the crust
Pome might look stiff outside
It's nowhere near the rocky rust
It tended to become like granite
Pome tried, pome failed
It mended itself day and night
And finally it realized
The rotten seeds are futile
Not every seed should go in plates
Not every pome gets an eater
And it's okay to not to elucidate
Pome is now different
Tend not to worry about rotten seeds
Pome accepts the partial sweetness
It now trim or just pass by weeds
Closing eyes listening to my surroundings
With words in the mind that can't come out
A feeling of danger sinking under water
Grasping with an intent to.follow the words
Help, please help I need someone close
The feeling of free flowing fall, or just an abyss
Deep rooted in our chest craves the moment
The relief of one consciousness driven down
The ora of ones pain becomes all
The worst of all it becomes that experience
Shake, shaking deep within tugging the soul
Pain rivals through and through instinctively
Opening the door to a new life and goal
But when you open your eyes
Your pulled back to reality and begin
Begin to do what Humanity is suppose to do
BREATH!
I sit, I relate
I try to connect
Something's wrong
LOVE can't affect
Everything's present
It seems in tact
But sorrow and grief
Makes anger react
That's misaligned
My finger can't land
Where's the space
For hearts to understand
No accountability
For wronging others
No responsibility
For hurting sisters and brothers
Presence of growth
Looks exactly like a weed
Where fruit should exist
There's constant need
Yes, there is absence
The place where capacity should be
Is caked and filled
With the care never received
...now, NO...is finally known
Written by Trudy Schrader on 06-17-2026
Without a doubt, thought is food for the ego,
which dwells in duality as does our mind,
so poised in staid silence, gently letting go,
leaving all our conditioned beliefs behind,
sliding into the heart, pure like morning snow,
doing nothing we become divine aligned.
Oh hermit, freeze the frame of time and be still,
whence blessings in-pour and voids within us fill.
I was doing so well - thinking I'd made it so far;
But now I feel as if my body is once again stuck behind bars;
Why did this happen - I did everything I was supposed too;
As my health deteriorates so fast - it's left me feeling so blue;
It seems as if my life will forever consist of unbearable pain;
As my once "well managed" life has now been flushed down the drain;
I was just starting to get my life back - it's so completely unfair;
Realizing the medications have stopped working has been hard to bare;
Knowing that I have lost my life again makes me breakdown and cry;
Acknowledging Im back at square one released a beast that tore me up inside;
I had so much to achieve such as college and volunteer work - where'd it all go?;
I've lost everything I worked so hard for - and why I wish I didn't know;
I feel as if my heart is broken - that I'll never function or be well;
As my chronic illnesses grab me by the throat ands drag me straight back to hell
It's the knowing .....the knowing you weren't coming back...it didn't make it any better
All of these questions circle round in my head
they are the barriers that keep me from bed.
Sat here before you, I’ll lay it all on the table
keep me from guessing, if you are able.
How long will it be, till the chosen one is me?
Are there roses just around the corner?
What is his name? Does he diminish my pain?
Are we bonded, but not by trauma?
Do you see an office, adorned with high profit or at least a better place to be?
Will I stop feeling that I’m watching the ceiling and waiting for it to collapse, on me?
Can you diagnose wealth, or even good health?
Do I get a place in everyone’s race or will I forever be miles behind?
All I need, just a few promises that what once was dull, will shine.
Will I get that something that I can call mine?
Will the clock stop racing and I’ll finally have time?
Will it just hit me, one day, all at once?
Or need I be patient, wait for years that were months?
As much as I know, it’s the seeds that I’ll sow
that will allow me to escape wilted blooms,
I just need an inkling of your wishful thinking so I can expect a change of tune.
Love, it is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall/tree,
or trying to catch a big yellow bee.
Love is like wearing your heart on your sleeves,
never knowing them or ourselves or thieves.
What happens in a jungle at night
when you leave the winding path
in the evening in a thick forest?
What scenes wild animals create—
what dreadful shapes move in the dark
among birds and trees,
you never truly know.
How terrible the wind may sound,
how silence presses
on every living soul.
The green leaves of the trees
seem to fade to yellow
under the weight of dark shadows.
The whole night is alive
with strange, unheard sounds—
a whisper of twigs,
a flutter of wings,
a rustle moving unseen.
It is like when you sleep at night—
you never truly know
where you are,
where your soul travels.
Yet when morning comes,
the jungle turns gentle and bright.
It looks like a fairyland,
full of life and quiet blessings.
Nothing seems strange;
no trace of the fearful night remains.
Just as when you wake in the morning—
refreshed and peaceful,
unaware of the storms
that passed while you slept.
Perhaps we do not need
to know everything.
Some shadows are kinder
when left unnamed.
Keep moving toward what matters.
Much happens around us,
yet entangling ourselves in every mystery
can shake confidence,
make the spirit fragile,
and disturb the quiet of the heart.
the dark unknown waits
nothing moves, nothing speaks, yet
my heart pounds louder
not for what I fear may come
but for what may still brood there
a closed door whispers
more scary stories than truth
could ever reveal
imagination breeds ghosts
more heinous, when less is known
fear lurks in shadows
cast from vague, flimsy sources
never once revealed,
always the thing imagined
too dreadful to be real
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