Under Starless Skies

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Under Starless Skies is a collection of poetry and prose spanning the entirety of my writing career. It begins with the first poem I ever wrote and ends with the most recent — covering the years 2023 to 2025.

The pieces are placed in chronological order, providing an intentionally ambiguous look into my perceptions and experiences over time.

Select Excerpts

By the Sea

I once sat by the sea and cried my tears of grief. I grieved the loss of a life that never did I live. I grieved any and every thing that never came to be. I sat and watched the ocean churn. I watched the waves crash down upon the shore. I watched the clouds so far away and the mountains in the haze. I watched the day turn to night, the ocean turn to gray. What were my tears if not but another drop to the ocean? Whose spraying foam should wash ashore. Were I pulled under, what would it matter? Who am I in this sea? Were the ocean calm, my mind not. Were the ocean rough, my mind the storm. Except I didn’t. I never sat by the shore. I sat behind a wall, door closed to the sea with curtains pulled. I stayed by the sea, but never did I sit. And for this were my tears of grief: I grieved having never grieved by the sea. I grieved that my gaze be through glass.

Never Was

Empty rooms that weren’t there. Faces of people who were not. Words spoken that never were. Memories of that which never was.

I am trapped in these rooms of which I have no memory. They form a labyrinth with no escape. My only company is familiar faces all too unfamiliar. Whose words never reach my ears.

I am tired. I lie on beds that are not there. I wake to sun without windows. I see a stranger’s face in the mirrors on empty walls.

I hold my hands before me. I turn over someone else’s. My hands never left my side. I walk from room to room without leaving the room. I speak to the strangers without parted lips. I hear with ears that aren’t mine all the words they never said.

Four walls I count, but each one different. I count and count, but they never end. I spin in circles and nothing changes. Yet each turn leaves me in another room. But I was not moving.

I sit while I stand and rest while I wake. My thoughts run through an empty mind. I see all that is not there. Yet my eyes are closed.

I am dreaming. But this is my reality. I am awake. Without any desire, I wish to leave this maze. Without any motivation, I will myself out. But I am not trapped. There is no room. Only a me that never was.

Rooted in Life

The whispers of the wind flow along my skin

Tendrils in the air surround me in their embrace

The cold of the night envelops me

Though there are no chains to see,

I am trapped,

Held fast by the air

It forces its way into my lungs,

Consumes my very being

The snaking arms of the wind have reached into my veins

Like a tree, I am planted

The flowing wind, my roots

Where is there for me to go when this world is my prison?

The air I breathe is not by choice

It has forced itself upon me

But when I try to hold my breath, my lungs call out in pain

This is not what I once was,

A prisoner to my body, and my body to this world

But if its roots have spread so deep, then are we not the same?

For without the world, I have no body

And without me, there is no world

But now must I dare to ask: what connection do we share?