too much coffee, too little sleep, a love of words…
The house didn’t fall
when they left.
The kettle still boils,
the dog still waits
for your voice in the morning.
Time to forget
the way you bent to fit
what was never built for you.
The sky hasn’t stopped
its slow turning.
Magpies still sing.
You breathe.
Something holds.
This isn’t the end.
It never is.
The right one
won’t ask you to shrink.
What stays
will stay
without being begged.
Ryan Stone
It only exists when the sun goes down
and the signs flicker to life—
neon lips, dice rolling, Girls Girls Girls
gyrate in pulsing pink. The gutters gleam,
slick with rain or something worse.
The footpaths hum with heels and hunger.
No one’s from here.
Everyone’s just passing through—
folded cash, fake names and bad habits.
Cabbies don’t question—they know where to stop,
won’t leave the meter running.
Inside dens, carpets swallow sound
and roulette clicks like a loaded revolver.
A man in sharkskin watches the door,
smoke halos every bulb.
The girls all wear smiles
thin as skin, and perfume
thick as regret.
Everything’s for sale in Sin Town—
a fuck, a fix, a reason not to go home
in the morning. The alley chapel
is open all night. No one goes in.
The priest plays cards out back
in boxers and a cross.
The motel’s got half-hourly rates,
and sheets that hold the shape of lives
wasted on piss-stained dreams.
A man cries through the wall.
No one knocks.
No one checks out.
This town doesn’t pretend
or offer salvation.
It lets you escape
until you can’t even remember
your name.
Ryan Stone
From my upcoming collection – No Map for This
for the ones who still wait
The rain begins slowly—
drumming
on stone markers.
I light a stick of incense.
It curls
like something trying to stay.
Even the cicadas
have fallen quiet.
A child’s sandal
drifts
down the flooded path.
Ryan Stone
The bowl is still cracked,
but gold glints
in early light.
Steam from the tea
rises—
a soft unravelling.
Outside, the plum tree
shakes off
a single blossom.
You are nowhere,
and still
I pour two cups.
Ryan Stone
We pulled off somewhere
past the edge of signal,
dust curling like smoke
behind the tyres.
She climbed the bonnet barefoot,
leaned back with a bottle of water
and a grin
like she’d stolen it from a god.
Said she used to be
an astrologer.
Said Orion was her first crush
and she still wrote him letters
when it rained.
I told her I didn’t believe in fate.
She said,
“Good.
The sky doesn’t care
what you believe.”
She pointed—
Scorpius.
Crux.
Something I can’t pronounce
but still dream about.
I kissed her
somewhere between Mars and regret.
She tasted like dust
and the end of something beautiful.
By morning,
the sky was empty
and so was the seat beside me.
I still look up
hoping to find
whatever she saw in the dark.
Ryan Stone
This poem appears in my latest collection:
Shady Ladies and Bourbon Highways
Available for kindle from Amazon Australia here or Amazon US here.
They meet there, still they meet,
Where sand gives way beneath bare feet;
No words are said, no vows are sworn,
Just lips that know what silence mourns—
They meet there, still they meet.
The moon bends low to kiss the wheat,
The stars hang close, the air smells sweet;
He brushes leaves from tangled hair,
She laughs as if no one’s aware—
They meet there, still they meet.
And when the dawn begins to beat
Its golden drum on every street,
They part as strangers, soft and slow,
And only night will ever know—
They meet there, still they meet.
Ryan Stone
It had no right
to be growing there—
in the cracked seam
between the house and the path,
where runoff pooled
and the dog pissed
and nothing green should last.
But there it was.
One daisy.
Tilting toward the heat
like it believed
in something.
Not blooming
exactly,
just holding on,
a yellow eye
in a world
that never looked back.
I could’ve crushed it
on the way to the bin.
I could’ve stepped wide
and not noticed.
But I stood there,
foot half-raised,
thinking of all the small things
we kill
because we don’t
call them beautiful
in time.
Ryan Stone
The butcher’s sign still swings,
though the shop’s been gutted
since Gaz ran a hose from the tailpipe
and left the lights on.
The school gate’s rusted open.
Wind sifts chalk dust
through cracked windows
where names once lined the roll
like prayers in hell.
Down at the silo,
kids mainline in the shadow
of grain that never came.
One girl carved a star
into her thigh—
the first scar
she chose.
The creek runs red when it rains.
No fish, no frogs,
no reason left to lie.
Dogs roam in threes.
Cattle follow fence lines
out of habit, not hope.
Even the sky
hangs lower than it used to,
like it’s tired
of watching us fail.
Mothers drink in sheds.
Fathers forget birthdays.
The baker feeds birds
because they still show up.
And under the rot
of pubs, paddocks
and cracked hope,
the town exhales.
Shallow and slow.
Waiting for someone
to mumble last rites.
Ryan Stone
some days
getting up is enough.
feet on cold tiles,
kettle humming,
a clean shirt pulled over last night’s ache.
you don’t have to shine.
not today.
just breathe.
just be.
let the storm pass without explanation.
let the sky rinse itself clean.
there’s no deadline
for feeling okay,
only weather,
moving through.
and when it does,
when the clouds crack open
and a thread of light finds your skin,
stand in it.
face to the sky.
you made it through the rain.
that’s what matters.
that’s the kind of strength
the world forgets to clap for.
but I see it.
I’m clapping.
Ryan Stone
Some days
the light forgets your name.
Doesn’t mean
it’s gone for good.
Even the sun
takes time
to climb the sky.
You don’t have to rise fast.
You don’t have to smile.
You just have to stay,
breathe once,
then once again.
There’s no prize
for pretending.
But there is grace
in holding on
when everything says let go.
You are still here.
And that means:
you are strong enough,
you are seen,
you matter.
You are not alone—
not now,
not ever.
Ryan Stone
days of stone 