I have carried both halves for all these years.
What would you do with a love that never ended?
Infinite
I have carried both halves for all these years.
What would you do with a love that never ended?
I have carried both halves for all these years.
What would you do with a love that never ended?
Choke Town
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
First Smoke
I lit it behind the shed
with a match I struck on the tin—
my thumb raw from trying.
The cigarette trembled
between fingers that still knew
Lego and scraped knees.
I didn’t cough.
Didn’t blink.
Just held the burn in
like I was keeping a secret
only smoke could understand.
The dog watched,
head tilted,
like he knew I’d crossed
into something I couldn’t uncross.
By the time Mum called for tea,
my breath was fire and hush,
and I’d decided
not to be a boy anymore.
Ryan Stone
The Stack
Miss Carr was the strict one—
hair wired tight,
skirts to the shin,
a voice of rules
and overdue fines.
The library breathed her name.
Quiet, please.
Return on time.
Hands to yourself.
I once saw her shush the deputy principal,
and he apologised.
We said she slept in the archives,
alphabetised her dreams,
quietened ghosts for sport.
She didn’t see me—
tucked in Fiction,
in the hush between Neruda
and Nietzsche.
As she reached for a book,
her blouse rode up—
bare skin,
lace black as ink,
the kind of secret
you never give back.
Then jazz—
low and slow—
slipped out like sin,
swirling with smoke
and memory.
She swayed,
hips in slow orbit—
a moon
shedding gravity.
I held my breath.
Watched her eyes close,
her mouth curve—
not a smile,
something primal
and wild.
She looked like someone
who once belonged
and wasn’t sure
if she missed it.
She smoothed her blouse,
buttoned calm back into place,
and turned off the music
without looking my way.
But as she passed,
she paused—
“Alphabetical,”
whispered
soft as dusk.
Ryan Stone
Red Wagon
I pulled my dog through summers,
tongue lolling in the heat,
ears twitching at bees
and things only he could hear.
The wagon rattled like laughter
over cracked footpaths,
and I—captain of that small red ship—
knew no world beyond
the corner store
and the shade beneath our tree.
It was enough.
Now I carry more—
keys, deadlines, debt,
the ache of wanting
what I used to have
before I learned to want.
My wagon rusts in a shed somewhere,
still red beneath the dust,
still waiting
for a child who doesn’t need more.
Ryan Stone
you left before the bell
we were sixteen,
all collarbones and restless hands,
kicking gravel behind the bike sheds
like we knew the world owed us something
and we weren’t afraid to ask for it.
your name lived in my throat
for years after
like a word I never learned to say
out loud.
we never got a proper ending—
just a Tuesday
and a late note
and a sudden
silence.
I still remember the smell of your school shirt—
faint perfume, pencil shavings,
a crushed eucalyptus leaf you kept
in your pocket for luck.
(you said your Nonna told you it kept snakes away.
I said I didn’t believe in that.
I lied.)
I’ve loved since.
proper loves.
wild, bruising, grown-up ones.
but none that remembered the way
I drew hearts in the margins
of science notes
and spelled your name wrong
just to be careful.
you were the ache
before I had words for aching.
the door left slightly ajar
in every room I ever left.
I saw someone who looked like you
last week—
older, tired,
still a little
wild in the jaw.
my chest folded in on itself
like a paper crane.
I didn’t stop.
I didn’t speak.
some memories
aren’t meant to be
put back
into real time.
but still—
on certain dusks,
when the light’s low
and the wind comes in smelling
like warm bitumen and chalk—
I think of you.
and the bell
that never rang.
Ryan Stone
Pulling Back the Sheet
It started as a scribble
in my yearbook
and ended
with an apology,
of sorts:
I wish I’d been more,
held your hand
when it mattered
and even
when it didn’t.
Ink lasts longer
than schoolyard dreams,
wilted
before their bloom.
Notes we wrote
lend breath
to ghosts,
long after
pens fall still.
In this cold place
I see your face
as it was behind the gym,
where your lips
once tasted
of blackberries
and sunshine.
Ryan Stone
Tidesong
Warm sand
between our toes,
your hand
belongs
in mine, until
our songs
are sung;
our instruments
unstrung.
Ryan Stone
Written for National Poetry Month 2016 @ The Music In It – Aging.
The Weight
One drunken night, he lay on the coach road
and she lay beside him. He pictured a truck
descending–wobbling around corners,
gaining momentum. They spoke about crushes,
first kisses. He told her of an older woman
who’d stolen a thing he couldn’t replace.
He tried to describe the weight of lost things.
She listened until he stopped,
until I stopped
hiding behind he. I felt small,
watching the cosmos churn
while I lay on the coach road
one summer night,
speaking of big things
and nothing.
Ryan Stone
first published at Algebra of Owls, November 2016
Republished for dVerse poetics – Poems That Could Save Your Life – this friendship saved mine.
I’ll not tread lightly
Remember school days and how we would play
like there was no tomorrow?
Now the castles we made
are the price we must pay
or flounder in oceans of sorrow.
Roaming wild and free, building houses in trees
as worlds waltzed to discordant tunes–
like a zephyr through grass,
gilded summer days passed,
left us flayed under Cheshire moons.
Wooden sword fights and valiant knights,
pirates, the Pan and his Bell,
faded from dreams,
rowed ungentle streams,
to where the real monsters dwell.
I’ve climbed faraway trees, seen fair Honah-Lee,
never never thought I’d grow old.
Now the pied piper calls —
as the last curtain falls,
leafless, I’ll trip into the wold.
Ryan Stone
days of stone 