Between Now and Whenever

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To the Broken

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I. To You

To the broken - yes, you there,

With quiet wounds you do not share

You carry weight no one can see,

And wonder who you’re meant to be

I see you clearly, where you stand,

No need to be more than you can

No need to soften what is true,

Or hide the ache that lives in you

I see the cracks you try to hide,

The things you carry deep inside

The tender places, worn and thin,

The quiet wars you fight within

So, hear me now, and hold this truth,

No one escapes what life can do

No heart untouched, no soul unscarred,

We all have faced our share of hard

You are not broken on your own,

Not set apart, not left alone

For every soul you pass each day,

Has faced a pain it hides away

And though it feels you stand alone,

On ground that never felt like home

Each quiet step, each breath you take,

Is known by hearts that also break

You are not weak for what you feel,

For wounds that time has yet to heal

There’s quiet strength in choosing to stay,

For rising up another day

Let these words find where you are,

No need to reach or wander far

Just hold this truth, both soft and clear,

You’re not as alone as first appeared

Bring your pieces, jagged, real,

No need to hide the way you feel

You'll find your strength in what you share,

And knowing someone else is there

II. To Us

To the broken - everyone,

Not just a few beneath our sun

Who walk this world with hidden seams,

And patched-together hopes and dreams

We are not strangers to the ache,

To all we’ve lost, to all that breaks,

We know the weight of silent pain,

The effort just to rise again.

And though we move as though apart,

We share a language of the heart,

In every glance, in every scar,

We see each other as we are

For we are bound, though none can see,

By threads of shared fragility,

By every place we’ve come undone,

By every fight we thought we’d won.

And maybe we were never meant,

To live untouched, unscarred, unbent

But rather meet within the seams,

And mend each other in between

For broken pieces, when they meet,

Can form a strength both fierce and sweet

A kind of grace we come to know,

In learning how to help love grow

We mend in moments, small and true,

In quiet things we choose to do

By reaching out and letting in,

And choosing love through thick and thin

So let us gather as we are,

Not hiding wounds or veiling scars,

And in that truth, both fierce and tender,

We find a strength in our surrender

We are ones who choose to stay,

When others chose to turn away

Who find, within the hardest view,

A way to help each other through

And in that choice to stand together,

Through all we’ve carried, all we’ve weathered

We finally see it, clear and true,

What hurts in me exists in you

No perfect shapes, no flawless starts,

Just steady hands and open hearts

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To Those I've Never Met

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To those whose names I softly know,

Through words you chose that helped me grow

You found me somewhere in the thread,

From thoughts I wrote, but never said

You met me not in time or place,

But in the quiet, written space

Still you paused, and still you stayed,

You let my words not go to waste

You did not know the weight I bore,

Or what those scattered pieces wore

Yet still you answered, warm and true,

As if my voice belonged to you

No shared past in all these years,

Just typed-out hope and unseen tears

And yet you reached across the screen,

To hold a heart, you’ve never seen

A word, a note, a line you shared,

A simple “I’ve been there, I care”

And somewhere in that distant place,

You've made life much easier to face

You’ll never know the depth you gave,

The steadiness, the way you saved

A piece of me I couldn’t reach,

Until your words found something deep

No grand applause, no crowded room,

Just scattered light against the gloom

From souls who chose, without a claim,

To tend a fire without a name

So this is all I have to send,

A thank you written to a friend

Who isn’t known, yet somehow is,

More real than most I’ve shared life with

And though we may not ever meet,

Or pass each other on a street

You’ve left a mark both soft and true,

This voice is stronger, thanks to you

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Still, You Stayed

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I wrote into a quiet place,

Not knowing who might see my face

Between the lines, between the doubt,

Not knowing if someone would reach out

Because I write what I have known,

The weight, the truth I call my own

I set it down, I make it plain,

And say it clear - this is my pain

And you were there

You read it through, you took your time,

You felt the weight behind each line

And when you chose to answer me,

You made it more than just unseen

You didn’t know me, yet you stayed,

And offered words, so gently made

No obligation, nothing owed,

Just something real you chose to show

And maybe you will never see,

What those small moments did for me

How close I was to letting go,

Of every word I tried to show

I almost let it fade instead,

And kept it turning in my head

Assumed it wouldn’t carry through,

Or mean a single thing to you

But you were there

A sentence, maybe one or two,

A quiet, “this spoke to me too”

And somehow that was all it took,

To keep me writing, book by book

You didn’t fix me, didn’t try,

You didn’t press or question why

You simply met me where I was,

And answered me, just because

It meant more than I thought it could,

More deeply than is understood

You had no reason to stay, at all,

And still you answered when I called

As you read these words I wrote,

I hope you feel them, note by note

The weight you lifted, unaware,

The simple truth that someone cared

You didn’t know me

Yet still you stayed

Suddenly, I feel less afraid