A Light Left On

A Light Left On

Some words are built to confront.
To draw a line.
To hold it.
To ask what side you're really on.

Others arrive softer.
They sit beside you for a minute,
say nothing,
and somehow still speak.

Not everything I write is meant to land loud.
Some of it lands quiet—
on purpose.

If you’ve come here for the essays,
thank you.
Truly.

But I write poems, too.
Not often.
Not loudly.
Just when the moment
asks for a different kind of shape.

Substack doesn’t always send them.
No inbox alert,
no drumroll.

So think of this
as a nudge.
Or a note.
Or a light
left on.

If you’re in a place
where the quieter things help,
you should know—

the poems live here:
https://www.brittleviews.com/s/poetry

Recent Poems

Before the Roar
About the moment just before we move. The breath that makes the sound possible.

Not in Rage, but in Resonance
We don’t have to burn hot to hold power. Sometimes presence is its own protest.

That Someone Would
A poem about staying soft in a world that wants you armored.

Only the Light
When truth shows up looking nothing like what you hoped—and exactly what you need.

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They won’t show up in your inbox every time.
But they’re there when you need them.
Quiet doesn’t mean absent.

—
Robert