Poems

“And in my darkest moment, fetal and weeping
The moon tells me a secret, a confidant
As full and bright as I am
This light is not my own and
A million light reflections pass over me
The source is bright and endless
She resuscitates the hopeless
Without her, we are lifeless satellites drifting”
-Maynard, Reflection

These poems are milestones on my way home. I didn’t write them to impress or explain — I wrote them because I had to. Each one marks a moment when something broke, opened, or came alive again. Together, they tell the story of becoming feral in the best way possible — wild, awake, and at peace with the world.

A Pariddle of Feral (Developmental Order - part 1)

• Inside us live we have a hierarchy of creatures. This myth-poem is about captivity, ferality, and what it takes for the those parts of us to carry our souls to freedom.

Unfurling (Shaping Water - part 1)

• This poem describes the moment when healing stops being a struggle and starts becoming an awakening. It’s not metaphorical — it’s the felt sense of a body, mind, and spirit reorganizing themselves into coherence. This poem captures that threshold: the wave of release when what was held by tension begins to move in balance, when fear turns to trust, and stillness gives birth to flow.

You Call It a Wasteland (I’m gonna waste it, baby!)

• Some people see ruin. I see the raw material of rebirth. This is a spoken-word meditation on destruction and what can grow in its ashes. It’s a battle cry of total commitment.

The Weight (Of Trauma)

• Trauma doesn’t just wound — it weighs. This is a litany of the heaviness I’ve carried, written not to collapse under it but to name it, so it can finally be set down.

The Love That Stayed (Was Not the Love I Wanted)

• A reflection on how love can awaken us — not by lasting forever, but by showing us what in us is ready to heal. This piece traces the transformation of heartbreak into wholeness: how another person’s presence can open the heart, how loss can reveal self-worth, and how endings can become thresholds. It’s not a story of romantic success, but of inner freedom — when love stops being something to earn, and becomes something to embody.

Between the Abyss and the Void (There’s a Line)

• Sometimes life feels like walking a knife-edge ridge: the abyss pulls you down, the void erases you. This poem is about finding balance when both sides threaten to consume you.

Father to Son (Initiation)

• This is a letter from a father I wish I had saying the things I wish I heard and which I wish my children would hear from me. It’s about how to raise a boy without breaking him, and how love can rewrite what violence once wrote in us.

Right Here, Right Now, Right You (Stay)

• Presence can feel elusive — like something always out of reach. This piece is a playful reminder that the only doorway is the one right in front of us: here, now, and the person you already are.

Yesterday Grief, Today Mischief (Gratitude for the Extremes)

• Our moods can feel like prisons — grief, scarcity, rejection, emptiness. But they always pass, and when they do, something new arrives: mischief, lightness, curiosity. This piece is about honoring emotional extremes as teachers instead of fighting them.

Talking to a Ghost (In the Mirror)

• For years, when I looked in the mirror, I didn’t just see myself — I saw a presence that haunted me. This piece is about facing that ghost differently, and how learning to speak with it became a way of reclaiming my own reflection.

Breathe In (Breathe Out)

• This piece is a meditation on how each inhale and exhale can be a doorway into joy, sensitivity, and growth.

A Taste of Life (That Feeling)

• This is what aliveness tastes like — the press of the throttle, the rise of the sun, the shiver of being seen. This poem is a hymn to those fleeting, infinite moments when the body remembers joy and the heart no longer flinches. It’s about flying, dancing, loving, forgiving, and realizing that every sensation — even pain — is proof that you’ve come back to life.

The Elephant in the Room (Which side are you on?)

• We think of the elephant as something awkward we pretend not to see. But the one I faced was vaster, heavier — a presence that filled not just a room, but my whole sense of reality. This reflection is about using all of our senses to meet what’s always been there, silently shaping everything.

Paradoxes of Wholeness (The Polarity of Growth)

• Healing has taught me that everything has its opposite folded inside it. Safety comes through risk. Freedom comes from discipline. Strength comes from softness. These are the paradoxes I keep relearning.

Barefoot (Feeling the Earth Touch Back)

• This essay begins as a reflection on the simple act of walking without shoes — and unfolds into a lesson on sensitivity and connection. By feeling the earth directly, I explore how awareness in the body can ripple into awareness in relationships and daily life. It’s a piece about gentleness and remembering that belonging starts with attuned contact — with the ground, with others, with oneself.