Once again,
I light a candle,
play the music,
and quietly weep.
Another year,
another milestone.
Life continues—
despite your absence.
The anniversaries
keep returning.
And so do I.
I wish
you could have witnessed
all that came
after you.
I have become
so much older
than the daughter
you last knew.
A missed coffee became an extraordinary reminder of what it means to matter to another person.
A poem about waiting, uncertainty, and the quiet courage of continuing without knowing what comes next.
We were supposed to be going camping in Austria. Instead, we got lost on the way home. A story of family, migration, and the journey that brought us to Aotearoa New Zealand.
A poem about the quiet connections that endure across generations, and how ordinary acts can bring us closer to those we never had the chance to know.
A poem written in my late teens about captivity, fear, and survival. Years later, it revealed a meaning I could never have imagined when I first wrote it.
Because no matter how carefully I arrange the furniture of my independence, someone else always holds the key.