stilled
within a silence
I’d forgotten how it felt –
strained against another
left unsaid

taken
by forever dreams
beyond my lover tears
fated list I made
for why I was

stayed behind –
kept inside
sitting with my sadness
baking bread
and singing to the night

circles drawn
to restlessness –
let me be the longer
folded into joy
the storms betrayed

echoes of a sorrow
cross the darkest sea –
safe within
the drowning –
reminders now to swim

. . .

for Delaney