Crow and Flame

Some things refuse to be explained in neat sentences.

Trauma does that.

Grief does that.

Healing definitely does that.

There are moments when the experience of being human feels too big for ordinary language. Too tangled. Too contradictory. Too raw.

That’s where poetry lives.

Poetry is the place where truth doesn’t have to behave.

It can break rules.

It can contradict itself.

It can say three different things at once and still be honest.

When I write poetry, I’m not trying to be impressive or clever. I’m trying to translate feelings that don’t have a natural vocabulary.

What does hypervigilance feel like in the body?

What does it feel like when your instincts were once dismissed so often that you stopped trusting them?

What does safety feel like when it finally begins to appear?

Those questions don’t always have direct answers.

But they might look like:

a crow sitting on a powerline

watching everything

or

a flame that refuses to go out

no matter how much wind surrounds it.

That’s where Crow and Flame began for me—inside metaphor.

Because metaphor lets the truth breathe.

Sometimes saying “I am exhausted” doesn’t capture it.

But saying “my nervous system has been standing guard for years” gets closer.

Sometimes saying “I’m healing” doesn’t feel real yet.

But saying “the ashes are still warm and something small is beginning to grow” feels more honest.

Poetry allows room for the in-between.

The half-healed places.

The confusion.

The moments when you feel powerful and fragile in the same breath.

And maybe the most important thing poetry does is this:

It makes invisible experiences visible.

When someone reads a poem and quietly thinks,

“I thought I was the only one who felt that way.”

Something powerful happens.

Not a grand dramatic moment.

Just a small shift.

A little less alone.

A little more understood.

A little more human.

That’s what poetry has been for me.

A language for the unspeakable.

A witness to the quiet battles.

A place where the crow can watch the world honestly

and the flame can keep burning anyway.

And sometimes, that’s enough.