lover
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
Obon Rain
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
Kintsugi Morning
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
She Named the Stars Out Loud
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.
days of stone 