Poetry

The Grander Canyon

Photo by Madalina Jantea / Unsplash

A poem by Nickie | October 8, 2025

My heart is a rock, hard, sharp, and heavy. cold to the touch.

Hold it in your hands, jagged edges, eager to break skin. Shrouded in a layer of dust, forgotten.

Crack it open and see who I've been.

A canyon ridges exposed layers capturing erosion.

Footprints in the dirt, many have traversed, some have trampled,

some grow roots down, down, down anchoring into flesh.

The deeper my ridges run the grander I've become. People flock to me just to snap a picture and say, "I've been there."

My scars are beautiful, or so I'm told.

Then why am I so ashamed?

The Enduring Creative

A poem by Nickie || May 20, 2026 My therapist wants me to work on showing up as my authentic self. But how do I break it to her that I've tried that and it doesn't work? Too loud. Try hard. Doing too much. Doing too much.

I never write poems for my husband.

I never write poems for my husband because I could never provide shade to the trees or quench the thirst of a flowing river. I never replace the shingles of my roofer's home or restore the brakes in my mechanic's car. I never write poems for

generational wealth

A poem by Nickie | May 17, 2026 I write my poems in my ancestors' blood On the trees that were planted centuries before borders stained the maps. The steel that forms the cages imprisoning their children was crafted from the same stones they carved freely into calendars that tracked

The Graveyard

A poem by Nickie || May 14, 2026 Our house has a collection of old planters that my husband jokingly calls, "The Graveyard." They're kept between our house and the neighbor's fence, In the most hidden spot of our backyard. Some pots still have dirt

Read more

The Enduring Creative

I never write poems for my husband.

generational wealth

The Graveyard