It wasn’t brave—I just forgot.
The rope still hung beneath the attic beam.
I made some toast. I let the coffee rot.
The sun came in like someone else’s dream.
A moth kept hitting glass. I watched it lose.
It fought a sky it couldn’t comprehend.
And maybe that’s what people like me do—
We pound at light, then bleed into its bend.
The mirror didn’t speak. The door was shut.
But silence sometimes holds you like a friend.
I didn’t pray. I didn’t clean the cut.
Just breathed. And let the ache forget to end.
They want the arc to bend toward something bright—
But some of us just burn to give them light.
Joshua Walker is a poet based in Oklahoma City whose work explores grief, identity, and survival through a fusion of classical form and modern grit. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Potomac Review, SoFloPoJo, Solarpunk Magazine, Libre, and Quibble Lit.
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