Tag: hope

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

2

Daisy

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

6

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

6

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

6

You Are Enough

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

7

Shaping a Poem

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

19

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