they say,
but I feel like I already did,
I still paint,
still write,
still speak,
still read,
but I think I lost at least a part of me,
the stable part,
the stronger one,
replaced by a void,
that leaves space for uncertainty,
anxiety,
panic,
a lingering silence,
that's tainted by sadness.

Hatred with violence
And the fear within.
Freedom from distress,
Tranquility lingering.

Only fairness,
A state of harmony.
Presence of justice -
A true symphony.

Peace is not a treaty.
It's the truth.

In the wildest place,
my mouth stopped with stars,
I came to the end of words;
the parched mint, bitter
paper plank

where I lost my balance,
on one foot teetering
along that roadway where gold-
flashing fireflies stand effortlessly
on air

to send their fragile signal
out,
every night a nocturne
of one less
til I and the last firefly

danced alone
in the wildest place
sending our last ignition
out
to find our kind

or else fall quiet
and one
with the wild that
will neither be spelled
nor known.




©joyannjones June 2023

I write poetry
born from a feeling, an emotion—
I’m not even sure what.

Almost like a kind of rapture,
the words come,
and I pour them onto paper
or into my notes app.

I wonder if one day
the poems will come with nothing—
existing just to exist.

Will this feeling, emotion,
or whatever it is,
ever arrive
separate from the poetry?