Within

These three poems form a quiet arc of a life — from the innocence of boyhood, through the ache of adult regret, to the tempered clarity of hard‑won wisdom. Each piece stands on its own, yet together they read like chapters of the same inner autobiography.

“Within” is tender without ever becoming saccharine. It captures the sacredness of childhood friendship with a precision that feels lived rather than imagined. The imagery — blue‑stained lips, dragonflies, ragweed swords — is vivid enough to summon memory even in readers who never lived such a summer. Beneath the playfulness runs a subtle emotional current: the dawning awareness of love in its earliest, purest form. The final stanza lands with quiet force, revealing that the meadow was not just a place, but a beginning.

“If Only” shifts into adulthood with a stark honesty that refuses to hide behind poetic flourish. The speaker confronts cowardice, loss, and the self‑deceptions that feel noble in the moment but hollow in hindsight. The poem’s strength lies in its restraint — no melodrama, just the steady, painful accounting of choices not taken. The repeated “if only” becomes a tolling bell, marking the distance between what was possible and what remains.

“Lessons” is the distilled voice of someone who has lived long enough to understand that wisdom rarely arrives gently. The haiku‑like structure suits the content: brief flashes of truth, each one earned. The poem acknowledges darkness, hope, pride, and humility with the simplicity of someone who has stopped performing for the world and started speaking plainly.

Taken together, these poems reveal a writer unafraid to look backward, unafraid to admit fault, and unafraid to name beauty where it once lived. They are intimate without being confessional, emotional without being indulgent, and honest in a way that lingers.