The Space Between Sand and Skin

You kissed me in camo beneath morning light,
Orders in hand, boots laced up tight—
New ring still warm on your finger’s grace,
Gone too soon, with fire on your face.

You left for a land of endless dust,
While I stayed back with memory’s rust.
The house is haunted not by ghosts,
But echoes of what I feared the most.

Your scent on sheets, your laugh in rooms,
Wake the war drums, old perfume—
I tried to bury all that hell,
But love like yours became the shell.

Nights drag slow through sleepless fights,
Flashbacks lit by bathroom lights.
I count each breath, I grip the floor,
Then whisper your name like a whispered war.

But God—when you’re back for those fleeting weeks,
No words, just skin, no need to speak.
You crash into me like the ocean’s roar,
I drown in you, beg, and ask for more.

Your body—battle-hardened, bold—
Takes me places I used to hold.
In that heat, we shed the weight,
Of every bomb, every twist of fate.

Then gone again—you disappear—
And I’m left clutching what feels like fear.
But this time love is my parade,
And in its arms, I’m less afraid.

Come back to me, my fire, my flame—
Each day I wait, I whisper your name.
You wear the uniform, I wear the scars,
But we still meet beneath the stars.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.

You Wanted This

You wanted this.
Not the tears, not the silence—
but the ending.
The open door.
The echo of footsteps leaving.
And for a while,
I stayed standing in the ruins,
still setting a place for you at a table
you’d already abandoned.

I begged the past to answer.
I folded memories like laundry,
hoping they’d still fit.
But love doesn’t live in a house
where one person’s already gone.

I didn’t utterly break us.
You just stopped building.
Stopped reaching.
And I wore the weight of it,
thinking if I loved hard enough,
you might feel it again.
You didn’t.

And that’s okay now.
Because I finally see it—
freedom wearing my own name,
a sunrise that doesn’t ask a teacher’s permission to rise.

You wanted this.
And now,
so do I.

Not because I stopped loving,
but because I started living
without waiting
for you to come back.

You can keep the deafening silence.
I’ll take the joyful freedom.
You can have the past—
I’m making room
for someone that stays and builds.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.

Something Beautiful After

I didn’t expect to want again. Touch had become a memory, a ghost I nodded to in passing—familiar, but too far.

Then you walked in like a secret I didn’t know I was still allowed to want. Not loud. Not demanding. Just sure.

Your hands didn’t ask questions—they knew answers. Like they’d waited their whole life
to map this skin I’d buried under silence.

You kissed me like it wasn’t a reward, but a right—like you’d earned it just by seeing me
and staying.
Staying when I trembled.
Staying when I burned.

This isn’t a rebound.
This is a rise.

There’s something holy in how you undress me—not just my body, but the layers I kept hidden even from myself.

With you, it isn’t just passion—it’s permission.

To want.
To ache.
To feel everything again.
Lips like an offering.
Fingers like truth.
Breathless doesn’t mean broken anymore.

You don’t heal me—you remind me I’m already healing. That I’m not ruined, I’m ripe.

And now—now I know the difference between being needed and being wanted.
And God, you want me. Like fire wants air. Like night wants skin. Like I want you—with everything I was once afraid to give.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.

A Cell for Love

I wrote a message late one night—
Not hate, not rage, just one last plea.
A heart too full, a soul mid-flight,
Still holding on to what we’d be.

But law saw threat where I meant grace,
And cold steel slammed across my name.
I landed in the darkest place,
Branded by a lover’s shame.

Beside me, mur der wore a grin,
And ra pe had eyes like hollow graves.
And here I sat with trembling skin,
A man who only tried to save.

I wasn’t perfect, never claimed,
But I believed in what we had.
In vows and tears and midnight talks,
In fighting through the good and bad.

You asked for space—I gave too late.
You drew the line—I crossed in hope.
I didn’t know love could equate
To cuffs, to bars, to twisted rope.

They said, “You violated law,”
And maybe, yes, that’s what it seems.
But all I did was speak of love—
Of shattered hearts and broken dreams.

How did “I miss you” turn to chains?
How did “Please talk” become a crime?
I wasn’t stalking, wasn’t cruel—
Just stuck inside our ruined time.

And now I sit among the worst,
Men who’ve stolen breath and light.
I whispered love, and now I’m cursed
To dream of you through endless night.

I should have listened, should have known
That silence meant a needed wall.
But grief can beg when left alone—
And hope is stubborn when we fall.

So here I write from this cold floor,
Still reeling from the cost of care.
You’re gone, the door is locked once more,
And love became my cross to bear.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.

More Than Enough

I see you when you think I don’t—
When shame creeps in between each bite.
When food becomes a kind of shield,
A way to feel just something right.

I hear the silence after meals,
The self-blame soft beneath your breath.
You smile through it, but I can feel
The ache that lingers underneath.

It’s not about the food alone—
It’s comfort, pain, escape, regret.
It’s every wound you’ve never named,
And every need you’ve never met.

And I won’t shame the way you cope,
Or say you’re weak, or make you hide.
I know how loud the darkness speaks
When you’re alone with what’s inside.

I’m not here to count or fix—
I’m here to see and stay and care.
To hold you when the numbness hits,
To love you through the wear and tear.

You are not broken by your hunger,
Not unworthy when you fall.
You are human, needing healing—
And you don’t have to have it all.

Let’s talk when you are ready, love.
Or sit in quiet if that’s best.
Let’s cry, or laugh, or walk, or rest—
Together, not a single test.

You don’t have to earn this love.
It isn’t measured, weighed, or scored.
You are more than all your battles.
You are someone I adore.

So when it hurts, and when it swells—
The craving, guilt, the heavy air—
Just take my hand, and breathe again.
You’re not alone. I’m always there.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.

More Alike Than We Knew

We once burned like wildfire caught,
No hesitation, second thought.
We built a world in gasps and skin,
A sacred place we both fit in.

Before the war, before the grief,
Before the silence stole belief—
We lived like nothing could divide
The way your soul once moved with mine.

But then the war pulled you away,
And I stood still while skies turned gray.
When you came back, you weren’t the same—
And neither was I, if I’m being plain.

I wore a uniform too long,
And braved the frontlines, stayed strong.
But still, the dust stayed in my chest,
Long after I was told to rest.

Then came the bridge, the twisted steel,
The weight of death I couldn’t heal.
The sirens, smoke, the eerie screams—
They still show up inside my dreams.

And COVID took the last of me—
The halls of death, the constant plea.
Masked and moving, heart on fire,
Another loss, another pyre.

You had your ghosts—I had mine too,
But we both thought we had no clue.
We passed like strangers in one space,
Each hiding panic in our face.

I thought you’d shut the door on me.
You thought I needed to be free.
But truth is, love—we both withdrew,
And we were more alike than we ever knew.

I swallowed pain, you turned away.
Both thinking, “They don’t want to stay.”
But every time we didn’t speak,
We built the wall another week.

We made love soft, then not at all.
You blamed the world. I blamed the wall.
But deep beneath the days we lost,
We never stopped. We just paid the cost.

We could have fixed it, if we dared—
To say we broke, to say we cared.
To hold each other past the pride,
And cry for what we kept inside.

But trauma doesn’t knock or ask,
It buries truth behind a mask.
And though we both were bleeding through,
We never said, “I see you too.”

Still, I remember how you burned,
And how my hands to you returned.
And somewhere deep, I know it’s true:
I was more like you…
And you were more like me too.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.

The Weight I Carry (And What It Costs)

The past is not behind me—
It walks beside me still.
It speaks in quiet moments
And bends me to its will.

It lingers in the sterile light,
It echoes in the hum
Of monitors and whispered prayers
When hope is all but gone.

The present isn’t softer—
It pulses through the pain
Of patients breaking in my hands,
Of lives I can’t sustain.

But I know how to sit with fear,
I’ve breathed through it for years.
I’ve felt the dark press on my chest
And fought back drowning tears.

PTSD has marked my soul,
But made me sharp and kind.
I see the wounds behind the words
That others never find.

In scrubs, I’m strong, I speak with calm,
I know just what to do.
At work, I give what’s left of me
To help someone pull through.

But when I cross the threshold home,
The weight becomes too loud.
The walls expect a gentler me
Than what I’m still allowed.

The stress I never fully name,
It follows me inside.
And suddenly, the smallest things
Feel like a wave, a tide.

I’m not as soft, I’m not as still,
I shut down when you speak.
I’ve run dry from giving all day—
There’s nothing left to leak.

And though I love with all I am,
Some nights, I disappear.
Not into war zones far away,
But right beside you here.

So if I seem a world away,
Or cold when I come home—
Know it’s not you I push against,
Just the silence I’ve outgrown.

The past still lives inside my bones,
The present takes its toll.
But loving you and healing too—
It’s both my wound and goal.

And all I ask is that you see
The fight behind the face.
I’m learning how to carry less,
And come back to this place.

So hold me when the light runs low,
Remind me love is near—
That even when I give too much,
There’s still room to be here.

© 2025 Shawn Oen. All rights reserved.