too much coffee, too little sleep, a love of words…
Years since—
his bowl gone,
yard grown over,
collar hanging
unused.
This morning,
cleaning the window,
I found it—
one print,
low in the corner,
half lost to light.
It floored me.
Solid.
Sure.
The weight of him
in a single mark.
I stood
cloth in hand,
his breath
suddenly in the room.
Didn’t wipe it.
Didn’t move.
Just watched
as the sun warmed the glass
and brought him
loping back
through the yard
and the years.
Ryan Stone
She never said
what it cost to hold the world.
Just straightened her back
when it sagged,
tightened the thread
when it frayed,
made dinner
even when her hands shook.
Her spine—
a tide chart.
Each vertebra
marked by waves
she never let break.
You wouldn’t know it
to look at her—
how many storms
she swallowed.
How many times
she flooded
and held
anyway.
Some call it strength.
But strength is easy
when it’s loud.
What she has
is deeper.
Saltwater kind.
Old as the moon
and just as faithful.
Ryan Stone
It’s not a question,
just instinct.
A scraped knee,
a bad dream,
the kind of ache
they can’t name yet.
They run to her
like rivers find the sea.
Like they always knew the way.
She doesn’t brace.
Just opens
arms, voice,
that face that says
I’ve got you.
There’s magic in it.
Not the wand-waving kind,
but the kind that knows
which night light to leave on,
how to mend what can’t be seen,
how to be
every kind of strong
without ever raising her voice.
I watch them fold into her,
safe and certain.
And I think,
this is how I learned
what love looks like.
Ryan Stone
It’s different
when you say it.
Softer,
like it’s something you found
and didn’t want to break.
No rush.
You let it settle
on your tongue,
curl in the warmth
between breath and meaning.
Sometimes
you barely say it at all—
just hum it
into my shoulder,
or murmur it
to the space between
sleep and waking.
I’ve heard it
shouted,
slurred,
scrawled on forms
and barked in anger.
But from you,
it’s a secret.
Not hidden,
held.
And I think
if I ever forget who I am,
you could say it
and I’d remember.
Ryan Stone
Grief came quiet—
shoved in gloveboxes
with old rego papers
and blunt tools
kept for no reason.
Tears weren’t banned,
just lost
between Dad’s silence
and busted knuckles,
between she’ll be right
and a door
that clicks shut slow.
We didn’t cry
when the dog died,
didn’t cry at the funeral,
didn’t cry
when she walked out.
Just sat there.
Fence posts in floodwater.
We break
in the gut,
in the jaw,
in the muscle it takes
to say I’m fine.
No one taught us
where to put the weight,
only
not to drop it.
Ryan Stone
I was born to dirt roads
and paddocks stitched with fence wire—
a sky too big for pockets,
and stars that never felt far.
Kookaburras laughed me awake,
and magpies taught me
which trees were theirs.
The gum trees never asked for praise,
but earned it,
standing through wind and fire.
There’s grace in the dry of it—
in creeks that vanish,
then come back when no one’s looking.
In red dust that clings
like the past,
but never weighs you down.
I grew up barefoot,
with sun on my back
and the kind of silence
that teaches you
how to listen.
Free not just to run—
but to be.
To speak soft when I wanted,
to shout if I had to,
to believe in things
without needing to name them.
This land has never been tame.
But it has been kind.
And I carry that kindness—
deep in the soles
of the country I walk on.
Ryan Stone
It was once the centre of things—
a sun that gave names to shadows,
that warmed the bones of planets
and made time possible.
Now it glows
like memory does—
dim,
but refusing to go out.
There is no explosion.
No final flare.
Only the slow retreat
of light
into ash.
It will cool for billions of years.
Long after the Earth forgets itself,
long after we’ve stopped asking,
this ember will linger—
silent,
alone,
perfect in its endurance.
Not everything beautiful needs an audience.
Some things are simply
what the end looks like
when it takes its time.
Ryan Stone
Wonder Box: White Dwarfs
When a star like our Sun dies, it sheds its outer layers and leaves behind a core—a white dwarf. No longer powered by fusion, it shines only with leftover heat. Over trillions of years, it will cool into a black dwarf: cold, dark, and undetectable. None exist yet. The universe isn’t old enough.
This post is taken directly from my latest poetry chapbook – The Sky Well Fell Through – published this week on Amazon
I did not fall.
I turned—
slow as tide,
sure as breath returning
after grief.
You are not my light.
You are the axis—
the unseen pull
that keeps my feet to the earth,
my voice steady,
my hands open.
Before you,
I mistook motion for meaning.
Now, I know the shape of stillness.
I know what it is
to be seen
and not flinch.
You ask nothing but truth.
Give nothing but trust.
And in your presence,
I remember
that love is not a fire,
but the air that bears it.
If I am anything,
it is because you saw me
before I knew
how to speak my name
without shame.
I will not call this forever.
Forever is a fragile word.
But if the stars go out—
if the sky folds in—
I will find you
by feel alone.
By the gravity
you leave in your wake.
And I will know
that this,
of all things,
was real.
Ryan Stone
for the ones who sing into silence
Somewhere below the shimmer line
where light forgets itself,
a whale turns slow in a cathedral of salt—
each scar on her skin
a stanza.
She sings,
not to summon,
not to find—
but to remember.
A song older than shipwrecks.
Older than ropes and sails.
The deep drinks it.
Holds it like breath.
Lets it echo
along trenches where no eyes go,
only ghosts
and pressure
and time without hands.
We used to think it was a beacon,
a call to others.
But not all songs seek ears.
Some are memory
made into sound—
just one creature
telling the dark:
I was here.
Ryan Stone
The sky forgets its thunder,
clouds fold their arms—
somewhere,
a moth dreams of moonlight.
Your breath slows.
The world blurs
like ink in rain.
Stars peer
through curtain cracks,
gentle voyeurs
to a silence
all dreamers know.
Let clocks keep time
without you.
Let the weight fall
from your shoulders,
like moonbeams.
You’ve done enough.
Close your eyes.
The dark knows the way.
It will carry you now,
wherever you need to go.
Ryan Stone
days of stone 