Meg’s Writing

Some of the things I write. | they/them

[worldsandemanations]

Elizabeth Shull

[graggmegwrites]

Sonnet I

I love you not as dawn loves gilded seas,

Nor as the rose unfolds to meet the rain;

I love you like the root beneath the trees,

Silent and dark, yet pulsing through the grain.

I love you not as stars adorn the night,

Or as the moon lays silver on the stream;

I love you as a hearth concealed from sight,

Its embers warming every hidden dream.

Between us moves no trumpet's grand acclaim,

No blazing banner carried through the air;

Instead, your voice has woven through my name

Like threads of light the eye can scarce declare.

And so I love you - deep where shadows start,

As earth loves seed: unseen, yet whole of heart.

[graggmegwrites]

The Great Midwest

The Great Midwest smells like rain on hot pavement,

like cut hay and gasoline,

like somebody’s grandma frying onions

while a tornado siren hums low in the distance.

It is water towers painted like peaches,

cornfields stretching so far

they become their own religion.

A church sign promising salvation

next to a fireworks stand

and a dead shopping mall.

The Great Midwest is stubborn.

It survives blizzards, floods,

factories closing at midnight,

the slow collapse of downtowns

where movie theaters became antique stores

became empty windows

filled with dust and campaign flyers.

Kids here learn directions differently.

Not north or south -

but by grain elevators, rivers,

the old Dairy Queen that burned down in 2007,

the cemetery on the hill,

the Casey’s with the good pizza.

Summer arrives loud.

Cicadas scream from trees.

Baseball diamonds glow under floodlights.

Teenagers drive nowhere for hours

with their windows down

because there is nowhere to go

and leaving feels impossible.

Winter is another country entirely.

Flat land turns brutal.

Wind cuts through denim and skin alike.

Parking lots become frozen oceans.

Everyone complains about snow

while secretly trusting it,

because hardship here is a language

people inherit before speech.

And still -

the Midwest is tender.

A stranger pulls your truck from a ditch

without you having to ask.

Someone leaves zucchini on your porch

because their garden grew too much.

Neighbors wave from porches

even when they barely know your name.

At dusk, the whole region glows gold.

Not metaphorically.

Actually gold.

Soybeans shimmer bronze,

water catches fire with sunset,

and the sky opens so wide

it makes loneliness feel holy.

The Great Midwest does not beg to be admired.

It has no oceans to brag about,

no mountains dramatic enough for postcards.

But it endures.

Quietly.

Endlessly.

Under enormous skies.

[graggmegwrites]

What Survives the Fire

There are people

who will tell you survival

is a quiet thing.

A soft animal breathing

through winter.

A seed underground

waiting for permission.

But I have seen survival

kick down the locked door.

I have seen it in the friend

who changed their name

and watched the world hesitate

before learning how to say it holy.

I have seen it in bodies

called too much,

too strange,

too wounded to carry light,

glow anyway.

Listen -

some of us were raised

thinking love was something

you earned by disappearing.

Make yourself smaller.

Quieter.

Easier to leave.

But what if the miracle

is taking up room?

What if healing

is not becoming untouched

but learning even your scars

have mouths

and they sing?

I want a love

that does not ask me

to amputate the wildness.

I want a future

built by trembling hands

still reaching for each other.

Because hope -

real hope -

is not a lottery ticket

hidden in a back pocket.

It is the person beside you

saying,

I know the sirens are loud

but stay.

Stay long enough

to hear the birds return.

And they do return.

Even after the fire.

Especially after the fire.

I have watched whole forests

grow out of devastation

like the earth itself

refuses the last word.

Maybe that is what we are.

Not broken things

begging to be made whole,

but a chorus of almosts

becoming.

A thousand unfinished songs

teaching each other

how to rise.

So if tonight

you are certain

the darkness has won,

put your hand

against your chest.

Feel that riot.

That stubborn percussion.

That ancient drum

refusing empire,

refusing erasure,

refusing the lie

that tenderness is weakness.

Call it heart.

Call it resistance.

Call it the oldest revolution.

But whatever you call it -

it is still here.

And so are you.

[graggmegwrites]

A Direction Called Kansas

If there’s anything better than life-

it must be this:

Wind bending the tall grass

like a quiet conversation

between earth and sky,

a language older than roads,

older than names.

Kansas, you are not empty.

You are full of becoming.

Sunflowers turn their faces

not because the sun is certain,

but because hope is a direction-

a choice made again and again

in fields that stretch farther

than doubt.

At the crossroads of the nation,

where highways braid together

like stories passing through,

people arrive carrying pieces of elsewhere

and leave with something steadier:

a sense that staying is also a kind of courage.

This is the land of people

who made it Kansas-

hands in soil,

voices in wind,

lives stitched from weather and will.

Not perfect, not finished,

but built anyway.

If there’s anything better than life,

it must be this version of it:

Morning light spilling over silos,

laughter carried across porches,

the long horizon promising

not what is guaranteed-

but what is possible.

Here, hope doesn’t shout.

It grows.

Slow as roots.

Bright as sunflowers.

Endless as the sky.

[graggmegwrites]

Where the Cracks Let Light In

I keep trying to find a word

big enough

to hold what it feels like

to be alive in this body-

but every word I reach for

has already been used

to explain something smaller.

So instead

I tell you this:

There are days

my name feels like a borrowed coat,

stitched for someone braver,

someone softer,

someone who knew how to stay.

And still-

I wear it.

Because even borrowed things

can learn the shape of your shoulders.

Because even a trembling voice

can say

I am here

and mean it

like a lighthouse means light,

like a scar means survival,

like a pulse insists on tomorrow.

I have loved

like a house with all its doors unlocked,

like a storm that forgot how to end,

like someone who believes

being seen

is worth the risk of breaking.

And I have broken.

God,

have I broken.

Into versions of myself

I did not recognize,

into quiet pieces

no one knew how to hold,

into questions that echoed

long after the room emptied.

But listen-

every time I shattered,

I learned something sacred:

light does not ask permission

to enter through the cracks.

So here I am,

a constellation of almosts,

a body learning its own language,

a heartbeat rewriting the story

it was handed.

If I am anything,

let me be this:

proof

that even the softest things

can survive

the loudest storms,

and still

choose

to sing.

[graggmegwrites]

The Sky Makes Room

Kansas storm,

and this time

it feels like a beginning.

The sky gathers itself,

not heavy-

but full.

Like it has something to give.

Wind runs ahead of it,

laughing through the wheat,

turning the whole field into motion,

like everything is practicing

how to move forward at once.

The air shifts-

sharp, electric-

but not threatening.

More like the moment

before you finally say

what you’ve been meaning to say.

And then-

thunder.

Not something to flinch from,

but something that says

you are here,

you are here,

you are here.

The rain follows,

steady and sure,

touching everything it can reach—

roofs, roads, open hands—

like it’s reminding the world

how to be held.

Fields drink deeply.

Dust disappears.

The earth softens

into something that can grow again.

Lightning flickers-

not tearing,

but illuminating-

showing the shape of things

as they are,

and how beautiful that can be.

And for a moment

everything is alive at once-

every leaf, every breath, every heartbeat-

caught in the same bright, moving now.

Then the storm eases.

Not gone,

just finished.

The sky lifts.

The horizon stretches back open

like a door that was never locked.

Water gathers in small, shining places,

mirroring a light

that feels newly earned.

And in the quiet after,

the world doesn’t feel broken-

it feels tended to.

Like something came through

and made space

for what comes next.

And you stand there,

watching the clouds drift apart,

feeling it settle in your chest-

this soft, steady knowing:

even the loudest storms

can leave behind

a gentler world

than the one they found.

[graggmegwrites]

About the Prairie

Out here

the land refuses straight lines.

Grass bends

in a thousand quiet directions,

each blade choosing

its own small way to face the sun.

The wind moves through us

like a rumor of freedom-

lifting skirts of bluestem,

braiding the prairie’s long green hair.

Someone once called this place empty.

But emptiness does not sing

like meadowlarks do at dawn.

Emptiness does not bloom

in stubborn purple

every spring.

Out here, the horizon

doesn’t close doors.

It stretches

wide as a promise-

wide as a body

finally learning its true name.

I think about the first person

who stood in this ocean of grass

and realized

there was enough sky here

to become themselves.

How the prairie must have said:

you do not have to stand straight.

You can bend with the wind.

You can grow where the soil

never expected you.

You can love

like wildflowers do-

bright, unruly,

turning your whole face toward the light.

And the prairie, patient witness,

will hold your secret

until it becomes a song.

[graggmegwrites]

Porch Light Left On

I used to think joy

was something that happened to other people-

the ones with lighter bones,

the ones who never learned

how to swallow their own thunder.

But joy, it turns out,

is stubborn.

It grows in sidewalk cracks.

It hums in grocery store aisles

when your favorite song comes on

and suddenly you are not a body-

you are a dance move

with groceries.

I have been weather.

Yes.

But I have also been sunrise-

the kind that spills gold

across every rooftop

like it is personally invested

in your survival.

There is a holy kind of rebellion

in laughing too loud.

In loving your friends

like you are building a cathedral

out of inside jokes

and shared fries.

There is something miraculous

about realizing

your softness was never weakness-

it was a garden

waiting for permission.

I am learning

that healing does not always arrive

like a quiet apology.

Sometimes it bursts in

wearing glitter.

Sometimes it says,

“Buy the flowers.”

“Text them first.”

“Take up the whole couch.”

Sometimes it is as small as

making your bed

and as large as

forgiving yourself

for not knowing

what you know now.

If you are reading this

with your shoulders tight,

with the world pressing

its thumb against your ribcage-

Listen.

Your laugh is not an accident.

It is architecture.

It is scaffolding

for better days.

Your body is not a locked room.

It is a porch light left on.

It is a front door flung wide.

It is music leaking into the street

because why should joy

stay quiet?

You are allowed

to want things.

You are allowed

to bloom without apology.

You are allowed

to call this life

not just survivable-

but sweet.

And somewhere-

right now-

the sun is rehearsing

your name

like it cannot wait

to say it again.

[graggmegwrites]

There once was a pickle so bold,

Who bragged of its brine and its cold,

It rolled off a plate,

Met a sandwich by fate,

And declared, “Now my story is told!”

[graggmegwrites]

Lady Luck

I stopped waiting

for the universe to send signs.

No lightning bolts,

no perfectly timed songs on the radio,

no pennies landing heads up

just for me.

Instead

I started leaving them.

A coin turned carefully

before I walk away.

A dollar folded small enough

to feel accidental.

Quarters slipped

into the detergent machine

at the laundromat

because someone is coming later

with a basket too heavy

and a week too long.

I imagine them —

the stranger with tired hands,

the person counting change

like it might multiply

if they stare hard enough.

The machine clicks.

They blink.

A small miracle appears

without explanation.

Maybe they laugh.

Maybe they don’t even notice

until later.

Maybe it’s just enough.

I used to think

the universe was something distant —

a sky full of silent watchers,

a grand design,

an invisible hand moving pieces.

But now I think

the universe is just us.

We are the coincidences.

We are the lucky breaks.

We are the reason

someone says,

“Things are turning around.”

A penny doesn’t choose

how it lands.

But I do.

So I bend down,

turn it over gently

like tucking in a blanket,

like closing a door quietly behind me.

Someone will find it.

Someone who needed proof

that today might be kinder

than yesterday.

And maybe they will walk away

believing in luck again —

never knowing

that luck had hands,

had breath,

had a face they passed

without seeing.

Maybe that’s enough.

Maybe that’s everything.

[graggmegwrites]

where the light remembers us

We walked where the river bent

like a question no one wanted answered,

grass folding under our shoes

as if it knew our names already.

You said love was a quiet animal,

something that watches from the trees

and only comes closer

when you forget you are alone.

I remember the color of evening

caught in your hair —

how the sky paused

just long enough to listen.

We never said forever.

We said now,

and let it mean everything.

There were small miracles:

your hand finding mine

without looking,

the way laughter carried

across the water like a thrown stone

skipping once, twice — gone.

I thought love would be louder.

Thunder, perhaps.

A choir breaking open the clouds.

But it was this instead:

breathing in rhythm,

knees brushing in tall grass,

your voice turning soft

as if afraid to wake something sacred.

Later, when the light thinned,

you stood at the edge of the field

and I felt time pulling at us

like tide against sand.

We promised nothing.

We held everything.

Even now

when the world feels unfinished

and every road bends away,

I hear the echo of your footsteps

moving beside mine —

a melody without ending,

a question without fear,

the mystery

of love

remembering us

long after we have gone.

[graggmegwrites]

Bigfoot Has a Costco Card

Bigfoot shops in bulk

because being legendary burns calories.

He buys trail mix by the barrel

and socks in packs of forty

because somehow

one always goes missing

and it’s never his fault.

Bigfoot tried yoga once

but the instructor kept saying

“feel your feet root into the earth,”

and Bigfoot said

ma’am, I am the earth,

and then accidentally knocked over

three succulents and a sense of peace.

Sometimes Bigfoot stands just out of frame

in blurry photographs

because he is shy

and also because he sneezed

right as the picture was taken

and no one ever talks about

how hard it is

to be a myth with allergies.

Bigfoot knows all the forest gossip.

He knows which trees are dating.

He knows the raccoons are unionizing.

He knows the owls are judgmental

but refuses to say anything

because Bigfoot believes in minding his business

and eating an entire family-sized lasagna

alone,

with his hands,

under a full moon.

If you ever hear a rustle in the woods,

that’s not danger.

That’s Bigfoot trying to open

a granola bar wrapper

as quietly as possible

because even legends

hate being rude.

[graggmegwrites]

Instructions for Loving the World While it’s on Fire

I am trying to build a softer voice

out of all the times I learned to shout.

I grew up thinking survival meant

hard edges,

that if I didn’t brace for impact

the universe would take me apart like a bad habit.

But lately

I’ve noticed how tenderness keeps winning.

It’s the way my body exhales

when someone says my name

like it’s not a question.

It’s the courage of staying

when leaving would be easier

and being cruel would be faster.

They told us love was optional.

A luxury item.

Something you earn after the rent is paid

and the wars are over.

But love keeps showing up anyway-

barefoot, uninvited,

asking if it can crash on the couch

because the world is too loud tonight.

I want a revolution that starts

with listening.

With believing people the first time

they say this hurts.

With choosing care

even when no one is keeping score.

I want us to stop calling empathy weak

just because it refuses to carry a weapon.

Let me be clear:

I am not brave because I am unafraid.

I am brave because I keep loving

with full knowledge of the risk.

Every day I wake up

and decide not to disappear.

That feels political.

That feels like a vow.

So if the world ends tomorrow,

let it be said

we held each other like it mattered.

Let it be said

we made room for joy

even when grief was louder.

Let it be said

we loved anyway.

[graggmegwrites]

Fear Holding My Hand

I am afraid of the new thing

the way a door is afraid of its own hinges—

not because they won’t hold,

but because they will,

and then there’s no excuse left

to stay shut.

I tell myself I am cautious.

I tell myself I am wise.

But really,

I am a museum of almosts,

glass cases labeled Someday,

ropes keeping my hands

from touching the life

that keeps waving at me

like, hey—

I’m right here.

Fear has a very convincing voice.

It sounds like love sometimes.

It says, What if you lose everything?

But it never asks

what I’ve already lost

by standing still

with my shoes on

and my heart still in its packaging.

I have memorized the shape of comfort.

I could draw it with my eyes closed.

It is a small room

with familiar pain

sitting politely in the corner,

promising not to surprise me.

But the new thing—

the new thing is loud and laughing

and doesn’t knock.

It says, You’re bigger than this room,

and my fear says, Don’t listen,

and my pulse says, Please do.

Here’s the truth I keep circling:

bravery is not the absence of fear.

Bravery is fear

holding your hand

while you cross the street anyway.

It is shaking so hard

your future can hear you coming.

I am scared because the new thing might change me.

But staying the same

has already done that.

So maybe today

I don’t leap.

Maybe I just open the door an inch

and let the light argue its case.

Maybe that’s enough for now.

Maybe that’s how it starts—

not with certainty,

but with a trembling yes

that sounds a lot like

I’m still afraid,

and I’m going anyway.

[graggmegwrites]

Cherry Pie is a Love Language

Cherry pie knows things

about patience.

It knows you can’t rush sweetness

without burning the edges.

It knows grief can be softened

with sugar and heat

and a willingness to wait.

Cherry pie is what happens

when fruit admits

it cannot do this alone.

When cherries say,

“We are too sharp by ourselves,”

and sugar says,

“I will meet you halfway,”

and the crust says,

“I will hold you

even when you break open.”

There is something holy

about a filling that bubbles over,

about a dessert that cannot contain itself,

that stains the oven,

the plate,

the conversation.

Cherry pie is messy

because love is.

People talk about comfort food

like it is quiet,

like it whispers.

Cherry pie disagrees.

Cherry pie announces itself

with red fingers,

with juice running down wrists,

with evidence left everywhere.

It says,

“If you loved me,

you would be marked.”

Cherry pie tastes like summers

that did not last

and kitchens where someone

believed you deserved

a second slice.

It tastes like being chosen

without having to ask.

And maybe that’s why

we keep baking it-

because somewhere between

the heat and the sweetness,

between the sour and the soft,

we remember this truth:

You don’t have to be perfect

to be worthy of devotion.

Sometimes you just have to be honest,

a little broken,

and brave enough

to let yourself be held together

by something warm.

[graggmegwrites]

In Defense of Dinosaurs and Other Soft Things

I believe dinosaurs still exist

because I have seen how we love.

I have watched a man apologize to a houseplant

and mean it.

I have watched someone say

“I’m fine”

the way a meteor says

“Just passing through.”

Somewhere in that emotional wreckage

a triceratops is folding laundry,

asking if we remembered to drink water,

asking if we’re mad or just tired

or just extinct from the waist up.

Listen,

the T. rex did not have tiny arms.

That is propaganda.

Those arms were perfectly sized

for holding one good thing very close

and dropping the rest.

The stegosaurus believes in therapy.

The velociraptor journals.

The brontosaurus still texts their ex

because love is heavy

and some bodies are built to carry it.

We say the dinosaurs are gone

but every time someone stays soft

in a hard century,

every time someone chooses wonder

over winning,

I hear the ground shake.

That’s not history.

That’s hope with teeth.

If you think this poem is ridiculous,

good.

So was the idea that something this enormous

could disappear.

And yet,

here we are,

still loving like giants,

still roaring in quiet rooms,

still asking the universe

to please, please not end us

before we finish the joke.