too much coffee, too little sleep, a love of words…
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
Not the loudest,
not the first to arrive
or last to leave.
You are the steady warmth
between seasons,
the breath that doesn’t need to be noticed
to keep the body whole.
You are the chair pulled close,
the cup filled without asking,
the hand that doesn’t flinch.
You carry no banners.
You don’t demand.
And still,
you hold up the sky
for someone.
That is enough.
You are enough.
You always were.
Ryan Stone
It’s a quiet thing, a word found
in the stillness of dawn
while dreamers slumber
and the new moon succumbs
to day. A fading thought,
soft intake of breath
in the long pause
between sleep and wake.
Sometimes it’s hope
enduring wildfire, flood,
or the dusts of time.
Maybe dinosaur bones,
a lost tomb, or scarecrows
guarding lavender fields.
Perhaps a dew-drizzled
cobweb, a jonquil, cloud
or song. Most often
it’s your breath,
soft and steady,
promising one more day
in which I will belong.
Ryan Stone
Ochre
soaked skies, sunrise
woke her –
blue grass
seas lilt behind
stained glass
at dawn.
On morning’s grace
she’s borne.
Ryan Stone
You will never fall in love with me.
Don’t try to convince me
That I will always wait for you.
If you really look, you’ll see
I’m not here for the long haul
Don’t imagine
You give me reason to stay.
When things get hard I’ll leave –
Don’t imagine
I’m not like the others,
Goodbye.
I’ll never say
I love you.
(Now read from bottom to top)
Ryan Stone
If I could write
the best poem ever written,
it wouldn’t be carved in stone
or read aloud to thunder.
It would be quiet—
just your name
folded into a line
only you would notice.
It would know
how your hands shook
the day you held someone
who didn’t stay,
how you once cried
into the collar of your coat
so no one would see.
It would smell like old paper,
taste like mint on your wrist,
feel like a dog pressing its weight
into the silence of your knees.
The best poem
wouldn’t try to be perfect.
It would listen.
It would wait.
It would find you
just before sleep,
when the light is soft
and your defences are down,
and say:
you are already
the line I was trying to write.
Ryan Stone
We hit the highway
like it owed us something—
two beers deep,
one taillight out,
her boots on the dash
and my name on her lips
like a dare.
Pickup rattled
with the sound of bad wiring
and worse music.
She tuned the radio
by punching it,
and it worked.
She lit a joint
off the cigarette lighter,
passed it without looking.
Said,
“If we crash,
don’t bother calling my mother.”
The wind carried
her laugh out the window,
along with half a map
and what was left of my caution.
Somewhere near the truck stop
she kissed me so hard
it left ash on my tongue.
She was gone by sunrise
and I’ve been chasing
that burn
ever since.
Ryan Stone
No path here.
Just damp earth,
moss on stone,
and the slow, deliberate hush
of growing things.
Tree ferns arc overhead,
fronds wide as arms,
filtering light
into something sacred.
I brought my sons here,
when their legs were small
and full of mud.
They squatted in the black soil,
drew patterns with sticks,
found joy
in a single wriggling earthworm.
The ferns, the filtered light—
none of it mattered.
Only dirt,
and the way it stuck
to their knees,
their laughter,
my heart.
Now I pass alone.
The moss is thicker.
Their prints long gone.
But I see them—
the shape they made
in that moment,
still held
in the hush beneath the fronds.
And I smile,
because some things—
mud,
love,
the wonder of being their dad—
cling forever.
Ryan Stone
This one is from my new poetry collection – Love, and Other Ordinary Miracles – soon to be released on Amazon.
Use both hands,
even if it looks small.
Especially then.
Do not squeeze,
poke,
test its reflexes.
It’s not a trick muscle.
Keep it warm,
but not too close to flame.
It remembers burning.
When it trembles,
don’t panic.
They all do.
Just be still,
and let it find
its own rhythm again.
Do not fill it
with your own silence.
It needs space,
not emptiness.
If it cracks,
and it will,
don’t offer glue.
Sit beside it.
Hold the pieces
without pressing.
And when it shines
for no reason,
on no particular day,
look at it like
you’ve never seen
something so alive.
Because you haven’t.
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
days of stone 