These four poems emerged over time, each one finding me at a different stage of unlearning.

They began as small acts of reflection — scraps of light in long stretches of quiet — and slowly became a conversation between solitude, surrender, and self-return.

In the Between traces the cyclical movement of awareness:

from awakening, to stillness, to confrontation, to integration.

It’s a meditation on what it means to live with uncertainty — to stop chasing clarity long enough to feel the warmth of being human again.

Sometimes I sit in candle light,

barely able to see,

basking in the warm, soft glow,

watching the shadow move —

but it never goes anywhere.

Reminiscing,

it felt easier in the life before now.

Yet truth tells a different story:

it wasn’t easier.

I lacked the wisdom to understand

the path I would take

would never be easy —

it would never be clear.

Tempered with time,

like the last stages of a candle

before it gasps for one final flicker.

You can’t sit at the same table,

eat from the same menu for a lifetime;

to do so is to starve the self

of the spirit of life itself.

Where do you live?

Are you in the in-between too —

that place that exists between beats,

the silent notes never played

but still understood,

the whispers that awaken

after dream?

No one is there — only the echo,

the drumbeat of time.

I haven’t yet allowed myself

to stop the mind

and simply feel.

Am I capable of feeling

what another may require?

I don’t know…

but I think

I want to

try.

The shape of quiet

is neither soft

nor still.

It rounds the corners

of rigidity and cold.

It is the place

where pause rests —

in between

breath captured

and breath released.

Quiet shapes

the inner workings

of the staggered soul.

But too much quiet

is a dry basin,

a cliffside cry —

screaming,

“What became of peace?

Did I miss

the point of reflection?”

I am a void,

avoiding the void,

avoidant still.

Timed yet bold,

I hold the position —

tracing the shape of quiet.

But the shape of quiet

is just a pill.

I don’t know what I’m expecting.

I used to think that life

would remain solitary —

after all, even if seen,

who could bring themselves to be?

To be with someone,

unable to do

whatever it is

that some people do.

When I close my eyes,

the noise stops.

The room is still.

Critical perspectives drift

to the back of my mind —

the building I constructed

after years of needing

safety, peace, serenity.

Did I ever find it there?

In that prison I laboured to build —

a fortress meant to be

impenetrable.

Is it crumbling,

or am I stepping out

from the walls myself?

Who am I?

Can I feel?

Can I allow myself to care?

Can I step out,

drop the guard,

remove the cerebral impulse

to protect?

What am I really protecting?

A life destined to be spent alone?

Is that worth protecting?

Perspective moves through fire —

the warmth is adoration,

the radiance of being,

but not consumed.

Is it worth protecting —

this prison of smallness,

of scarcity?

What does it mean

to enjoy, to experience,

to dwell in the in-between —

the not knowing

what I’m doing,

but wanting

to live again.

It’s funny how time can change you —

yet when the cycles return,

we find ourselves returning too:

to echoes of the past —

songs, thoughts, books,

rituals, practices.

Seeking something in what was

to understand what is,

so we might better see

what’s next.

Standing upon the self,

on roots grown across

the slippery surfaces of certainty —

they never were,

and never will be.

There is no such thing as certain,

only sufficient information.

She’s easy to listen to,

to talk to, to be with.

The heart doesn’t leap,

but the spirit and mind

are peaceful.

Is this what maturity feels like —

meeting without rush,

waiting for the flame

that flickers,

tricking the eyes

until it fades in embers?

The steady calm of presence —

not fooled by the streetlights

that obscure vision in the night.

The night is where illusions dance,

where friction fills the mind.

I once was a writer.

I poured out my pain and fears,

bled them through my pen

onto paper.

It wasn’t discovery —

it was recovery.

I haven’t written in a decade or more.

Haven’t felt the pull.

Still don’t feel the flow

that once existed

in that far-away life

I’ve since outgrown.

Where did the tortured,

profound poet go?

He stopped torturing himself

and started to seek clarity.

Gave up responsibility —

overrated.

Closed off, covered up,

replaced with precision,

technicalities.

Freedom became

the self-constructed

struggle itself.

Between the flame and the quiet,

between the wall and the open field,

between the returning and the release —

the self learns to rest

not in knowing,

but in being.

This is the pulse

that hums beneath reflection:

a life reclaimed

not through certainty,

but through return.