Day 19 of #NationalPoetryMonth and I went full blues-ballad with The Ballad of Burnt Hill Road.
Read MoreThe Quiet After the Call
There’s a silence most people never hear.
It’s not peace—it’s the sound after the sirens, when the adrenaline fades and the ghosts start talking.
After years in the military, fire service, and EMS, I came to know that silence too well. It isn’t quiet. It’s noise turned inward.
In that space, the heart races, the mind replays trauma, and the spirit aches under the weight of it all.
Crowded rooms became unbearable. Joy felt dangerous. And I couldn’t sit still without my hands shaking.
But healing began when I finally stopped running and listened to that silence. I learned to name the things I feared. I started writing again.
This memoir, The Quiet After the Sirens, is a testament to survival—not just in the field, but in the stillness that follows.
It’s about carrying the weight, honoring the ghosts, and learning how to breathe again.
If you’ve ever known that kind of silence, this story is for you too.
NaPoWriMo Day 13: The Gold Light in Quiet Rooms
By @RWhiteAuthor 🌿 NaPoWriMo Day 13: Inspired by Donald Justice’s “There is a gold light in certain old paintings” Today’s poem explores memory, art, and the way moments—like brushstrokes—blur and echo in the mind. Following Justice’s self-invented form, each stanza holds six lines of twelve syllables. …
Read MoreNaPoWriMo Day 9: The Bell Beyond the Fog
By @RWhiteAuthor For today’s NaPoWriMo prompt, I wanted to capture the haunting weight of sound in stillness. Inspired by the way fog distorts noise and reshapes perception, this poem leans into rhyme and the echo of a singular, specific sound: the distant clang of an old …
Read More📝 NaPoWriMo Day 8: Ghazal – A Love Song
Today’s prompt was to try writing a ghazal, a traditional poetic form often used for love poems. Each couplet must stand on its own while repeating a refrain.
Read MoreBlaze – Creative Writing Using Symbolism
You don’t choose to be a firefighter. You don’t choose to be a hero.
It’s a fire that burns inside you. Like an ember lodged in your chest that never dies, no matter how hard you try to smother it…
In Blaze, Chase Bowdry runs into burning buildings not because he wants to—but because he can’t imagine being anyone else. When a fire threatens to consume a warehouse and the girl trapped inside, Chase is forced to confront what drives him: legacy, survival, and something deeper.
Not all fires destroy. Some reveal.
🔥 “He used to think the helmet made him who he was. But now, he knew the truth… He saw himself as a flame—not the kind that consumes. The kind that carries light.”
Read MoreNaPoWriMo Day 7 “Why I Am Not a Symphony”
Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt: Write a poem explaining why you are not a work of art. Mine? A chaotic self-portrait in sound. I am not a symphony.
Read MoreNaPoWriMo Day 6 – Cinnamon
By @RWhiteAuthor Today’s #NaPoWriMo prompt asked poets to explore the taste of something—through texture, sound, and emotion. Inspired by the spice that stirs both comfort and memory, “Cinnamon” captures the burn behind nostalgia and the golden weight of something half-remembered but wholly felt. Row Column …
Read MoreWe Played Terribly
By @RWhiteAuthor Day 5 of NaPoWriMo prompt is inspired by musical notation, and particularly those little italicized –and often Italian – instructions you’ll find over the staves in sheet music, like con allegro or andante. First, pick a notation from the first column below. Then, pick …
Read More“The Painting by the Window”
By @RWhiteAuthor Today’s (optional) prompt. In her poem, “Living with a Painting,” Denise Levertov describes just that. And well, that’s a pretty universal experience, isn’t it? It’s the rare human structure – be it a bedroom, kitchen, dentist’s office, or classroom – that doesn’t have art …
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