Aspen Writes Poetry

Stay It’s not loud, you know. Death. No banging fists, no lightning. Just a knock, like a neighbour asking to borrow sugar. Polite. Almost shy. I’ve heard it, Heard it for weeks now— soft as the hush you’d make when you curled into me on stormy nights, your head small as a teacup in my lap. They think I don’t hear it. They say,  Walk more. Eat less. Sit in the sun. As if light can undo what time has stitched. As if I can outsmile what’s coming. But I don’t tell them, and I didn’t tell you— not yet. Because I saw you dancing in the kitchen, burning the toast, laughing like fire. How could I leave that? Some mornings I lie very still, trying to measure the silence. But then I hear your voice downstairs, and I choose again to stay. You’ll learn, my love— one day. Death doesn’t take you. You let go. And sometimes, you just don’t. Not while someone still needs you to stay.

Finding Strength in the Struggle: A Journey Through Health Tiny Turtle Shells Tiny turtle shells  hide the weight  of ancient oceans  on their backs like you and I  carry our worlds  behind fragile smiles slow steps  through time’s tide  seeking shorelines  we can’t yet see but oh, the strength  in each weary stride  and in the knowing  that we are enough even when burdened  by the heaviest waves  we carry on small, steady  and unbreakable --- Life has a way of testing our resilience in ways we never imagined. Lately, I have been grappling with challenges that have made each day feel like an uphill battle. My physical and mental health have been put to the test, leaving me feeling vulnerable and, at times, overwhelmed.  The poem above resonates deeply with my current state. Just like the tiny turtles, we often bear the weight of our worlds on our backs, hidden behind smiles that don't always reveal the full exten...

 Vessel and Illness Vessel: There was a time,   when my skin sang   like the morning   and my bones whispered   promises of forever.   Illness:   I came like a shadow   creeping in,   silent,   until I was   all you could see.  Vessel: You took the air   from my lungs,   the strength   from my limbs,   left me gasping   for the days   I used to know—   you anchored in my veins.   I felt you in my mornings   when getting out of bed   was climbing a mountain   I never trained for.   You whispered in my ear,   told me I was weak,   made my strength your myth.   Illness: I am not the villain   you believe me to be.   I am the storm,   the reckoning,   the teacher   you never asked for....

Am I that weird jealous ex to her? In whispers of darkness, shadows dance, Two souls caught in a tragic trance. I see her now, weary eyes,  The same sad story, no surprise. I want to tell her she looks poorly, But am I just seen as that weird, jealous ex? I want to tell her she deserves more, But am I just seen as that weird, jealous ex? Her smile, a mask, fragile and thin, A façade for the pain within. I know that hurt, I've walked that line, But will she see, or dismiss my sign? I want to tell her I've felt that sting, But am I just seen as that weird jealous ex? I want to tell her her heart can sing, But am I just seen as that weird jealous ex? The nights I cried, the days I hid, The love I thought I needed, I outbid. I broke free from those chains so tight, Yet she remains, dimming her light. I want to tell her she has the strength, But am I just seen as that weird jealous ex? I want to tell her she'll find her length, But am I just seen as that weird jealous ex? In her...

I wake up,  With a chest heavy as iron,   A fortress of worry and doubt,   Wrapped around my ribs,  Like a shield against myself. These walls I built so high   To keep the world out, Only make me crumble,  From the inside. My heart,   A delicate flower, Hidden beneath layers, Of steel petals,   Afraid to open. Every breath echoes through, This hollow armour,   Each pulse a reminder, Of how fragile, I truly am. I wear resilience like a mask,   Fooling everyone, including me,   Into thinking, I am unbreakable. But in the silence,   When no one sees,   I feel the weight,  Of my own defenses, And the ache, Of my own need, To simply be,  Naked in my vulnerability. Sometimes,   The strongest thing we can do,  Is allow ourselves, To be soft and to feel. Every crack in this armour   Is a testament   To my survival,   And every ...

They tell us, to keep our chins up, as if despair can be, brushed away like dust, from an old bookshelf. Their promises fall, like brittle leaves, from a dying tree, each one, a reminder, of the decay. We’re asked, to be resilient, while they hoard hope, in locked rooms, and golden vaults. We clutch at crumbs, while they feast, and preach patience, as if hunger, is a lesson, we must learn. The weight of their words, sinks us deeper, into the shadows, where dreams, wither and fade. But in the silence, of our shared pain, we find a voice, and in our unity, a spark. We are more, than their indifference. We are the storm, that will cleanse, this house of lies. We rise, because we must, for in our struggle, we reclaim, the light.

You rise before the sun,   Gathering fragments of yourself, Left scattered by yesterday's fatigue - Emotional journey of carers. Each day, A mountain to climb,   With no summit in sight.   Your hands blister,   Your heart aches, Your mind a labyrinth,  Of forgotten dreams. You lift others, While your own wings, Weigh heavy, Tethered to the ground. The silent warriors, Unseen, uncelebrated,   And still, The world turns its back. You whisper your needs, Into a void -  Challenges they face. Societal neglect,  A ghost that haunts,  The corridors of your being, Rendering you invisible. Yet your love, Carves rivers, Through stone. The paradox:   You care until you can't, Then become the one, Needing care. Your strength turned inside out, The heart that gave, Now breaking.   Persistence is your anthem, A melody unsung.   But it echoes in the chambers, Of those who know, The price of giving all. Unpai...

 In the guise of shadows, my story unfolds, A secret writ deep in the creases of my skin. Invisible ink stains my days, With a narrative only I can comprehend, An opus of resilience, sung low. My skin, a tapestry too complex for eyes to see, Wears a cloak not chosen but bestowed by fate. The world sees not the battles fought within, Where every morning rises like a steep cliff, And my spirit, weary, scales it anew. People pass, their glances sliding off my hidden contours, Blind to the marathon in my veins, The effort cloaked in the mundane, A performance so practiced, so refined, That even those closest read but the cover, not the tale. Misunderstood whispers tangle in the air, Murmuring doubts, casting shadows on my worth. Look how well, they say, not seeing The storm-tossed seas I navigate each moment, The tempest invisible, silent, yet relentless. Yet within this cocoon of invisibility, Lies a power, a fierce undying flame. For every moment I'm underestimated, I forge my will, ...

 In the half-light of the consulting room, I was renamed— not Mary, not Jo, not Ella, but Chronic, a label stamped on my forehead, invisible ink that everyone seems to see but me. Chronic – the prefix to my every condition, a companion more loyal than any dog, nudging its cold nose into my business, whispering sweet nothings like forever and never again. Mornings taste of metal, spoon-fed by routine, pills rattling in their orange bottles like maracas, a fiesta I never wished to attend. Outside, the world spins at the speed of life, while I am stuck, buffering, a video paused on the face of someone laughing. My bed, a life raft in the open sea of my bedroom, holding me aloft amidst waves of sheets and the detritus of my own shipwreck— the books I mean to read, the clothes I swore to wear on days I'd conquer the world, not the bathroom. Let's catch up soon, they text, those friends of mine, not realizing I've been frozen in amber since the last time they saw me smile, a phot...

 In the quiet of twilight's shadow, where love dares to whisper its name,  we find a world, tangled in sorrow, where phobia is a misnomer, a misguided claim.  Not a fear born of nature or the unknown depths of the night,  but a cloak, veiled in prejudice, an unwillingness to embrace the light.  Ignorance breeds this shadow, a heart locked tight, unwilling to see  the simple fact of love in all its forms, wild, boundless, and free.  Phobia suggests a terror, involuntary, a chill to one's core,  not this learned disdain, a shut door on love's endless lore.  Yet they stand, the unyielding, wielding phobia like a shield,  as if homophobia were a monster in their hearts they're forced to wield.  But fear is not the master here, no trembling hand or beaten sigh,  but a chosen blindness, a refusal of the rainbow stretching wide across the sky.  The heart knows no borders, no genders, no decree,  that love is love, in all its...

In the shadowed breaths of the old city, Where ghosts of war whisper through cracked walls, There, we weave the threads of our human spirit, Fragile as spider silk, yet unbreakable in their ties. We dance in the ruins, our feet tapping stories, Old as the moon, yet fresh as the dawn's shy blush. Each step, a word; each leap, a sentence In the book of us—love penned in ash and dust. I’ve seen a mother’s eyes, deep as a night without stars, Hold the universe of her child’s laughter, Loud enough to shake the heavens, Loud enough to silence guns for a moment's breath. In the cathedral of the human heart, where sorrow prays, Love, that old priest, still speaks in tongues of flame. Our hands, scarred by life's battles, reach across the void, Touching—oh so briefly—the divine in us all. We build bridges out of our brokenness, Crossing rivers swollen with our tears. Through each shattered piece, light gets in, Casting rainbows on our scars—a testament to resilience. Even as the dru...

 Remember that day, just walking, hands tangled like vines in spring, Down our own street, thinking this was our world, a safe cocoon. Laughter in our bubbles, your laugh echoing in my head, a sing- Song of 'us against the universe'. But shadows loomed, too soon. First, it was words flung like stones, from the mouth of a passerby, Words that struck, sharp and cold, breaking the air around us. Hate, a dark cloud in that clear blue sky; didn't understand why Our love, something so pure, could cause such a fuss. It was the sudden shift, from invisible to target, Our hands unclasped, the air turned icy, heavy with threat. Didn't it feel like a sick sort of spotlight, that hatred, stark and abject? That day, the colour of our love, it changed; something we couldn't forget. But, mate, that was just the first of many, wasn't it? Each outing a roll of the dice, a gamble with visibility. The streets we walked, the parks, the pubs, pieces in a world that didn't quite ...

 in the laboratory of tomorrow  they have trained machines  with a hunger  for numbers and patterns  more ravenous  than the ambition of men in their binary brains  rests the key  to unlock mysteries  woven within our DNA  the whispered secrets  of cancer,  elusive and veiled  await deciphering  and yet  we choose  to task these digital prodigies  with brushes rather than scalpels  asking them  to paint dreams  on canvases  while real dreams are shattered  by a diagnosis that comes too late  imagine  a world  where instead of creating  lines of beauty  on a page  the algorithms are dancing  in the night  around the architecture  of a cure  why do we marvel  at the artifice of artificial beauty  when the true masterpiece  could be a future  where cancer  is but a shadow  of the past  in the symph...

 They tell you, It's all in your head. As if your head, Is not a universe, Expanding,  Filled with nebulas of pain, And constellations of confusion. But also,  Planets of hope, And galaxies of strength. Remember, When society's ignorance,  Weighs heavy on your heart, Their eyes, Cannot see, What their minds,  Do not know. You are not defined, By the disbelief, Of those, Who have never walked, Through the storms, You've weathered. You are defined,  By the courage,  It takes to live, In a body,  That is a battlefield , And still, choose to rise. - Aspen Greenwood