got together before,
thrived during,
and deepened after.

the world had gone quiet,
streets hushed,
time slowed to a simmer.
we measured days in drinking,
and nights in being together.

that summer,
while you worked,
i found a passion
in building a home —
a craft i had overlooked before.

i baked with my heart,
and cooked with my soul.

my mother was stupefied —
i never, not once,
helped her in my life.
even the way i peeled potatoes
was apparently a crime.

but then,
i created specialties,
dishes from all over the world,
setting time aside each day
to warm your heart
with two courses,
and desserts.

that fire still lives.
i’m so **** good
at what i do —
because food is my love language,
and when i cook,
it’s all for you.

(a throwback poem from High school)

I'm the most popular girl in my homeroom.
Of course, that's my own bedroom -
cause we're on COVID lockdown, zoom.

My bedroom is the math class, which doubles as the gym,
it triples as the theater - you should see the shows I'm in.

They're only in my mirror, so my cats get free admission.
My sudden popularity's due, to a matter of attrition.

If I play my cards right, I can probably be prom queen
I'll hold the ceremony in the garden, so the travesty goes unseen.

I don't remember the moment that we met...
T’was the year of that brief breath of freedom but
we're both aware of the story that ensued:
the dreaded lockdown that sent us to despair.
But it was over the phone that we would still
speak on together and on and on we went.
Three 'ours; these hours would pass through time until
the norm remembered by us had now been bent
and twisted into something tot'lly new:
a calming thing.
A strange yet charming thing that broke the norm we grew to be accustomed to.
And though, in lieu of all I thought I knew,
I come to think
of how this change so scared me that I threw it all away, and hence lost you.

I still remember the moment when it would come to end...
I wonder now what had God left me to be.

The woman singing
With the car radio
Knows half the words.

A customer grabs,
With a shirt-protected hand,
Goodwill's door handle.

The boy in the womb
Is already attending
DUI classes.

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.

One man’s outbreak
Another man’s breakthrough
It struck us all
In different ways
It struck us all

We lost many
Despite our best efforts
Still mourning
We are all
Still mourning

We tried to connect
Through screens and masks
Locked inside
While we were
Locked inside