Rescue & Ruin
Eclipse
From my new poetry collection Small Rituals. Available on Amazon – Books via this link
Free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers
What Stays
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
After the Rain
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
Still Here
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 