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@samueldeckerthompson
We are all just a car crash, a diagnosis, an unexpected phone call, a newfound love, or a broken heart away from becoming a completely different person.
How beautifully fragile are we that so many things can take but a moment to alter who we are for forever?
-Samuel Decker Thompson @adudewritingpoetry www.facebook.com/ADudeWritingPoetry
You kept trying to lead by example.
You tried to show them how good it felt to be treated well,
to be thought of,
to be considered,
to be consulted,
to be touched,
to be remembered,
to be a team.
You loved them out loud through small things,
through consistency,
through showing up even when you were tired,
but some people only know how to receive love,
not return it,
and after enough long nights of feeling alone,
even while sharing a home,
something inside you began to harden quietly,
not into cruelty,
just acceptance,
because a person can only hand someone the map so many times before realizing they never intend to meet you there.
At least now you know
it's time
to begin
the next leg of your journey
on your own.
-Samuel Decker Thompson
it is a quiet misunderstanding.
The same way we name their return as devotion.
We dress it in meaning,
call it fate,
call it unfinished love,
but what it really is
is the echo of their own emptiness, reaching for something warm so it does not have to hear itself.
They don’t come back because something within them finally woke up for you.
It’s not that clean.
It’s not that honest.
They circle back when the room gets too quiet,
when the other names stop answering,
when the distraction dries up
and they are left alone with themselves and they can’t stand the company.
So, they return to what is familiar,
not what is sacred.
They return to the place where they were already forgiven,
where the door was left slightly ajar out of habit,
or hope,
or something softer ...
... and you let them in again,
because you remember the version of them that almost stayed,
but almost is a long way from choosing,
and they don’t stay because they lovingly found their way back to you,
they stay because
they lost everything else,
and when something better appears,
they will go without looking back.
YOU ARE NOT the destination,
you are simply where they wait,
YOU ARE NOT the answer,
you are what they take for granted.
YOU ARE NOT the harbor they chose,
you are the light that helped them see the shore,
YOU ARE NOT the promise they keep,
you are the unconditional love they constantly ignore.
-Samuel Decker Thompson
#poetry
They say love is messy,
too much work,
something to scoff at or outgrow,
so you trade it in,
piece by piece,
for a screen's distraction,
for control,
for something that never looks you in the eyes
or peers into the depths of your soul.
There is a quiet persuasion in the age we live in,
a soft and constant whisper
that tells us to protect ourselves from one another,
to trade warmth for distance,
connection for convenience.
We are given endless things to hold, and yet we remain so empty.
We are shown countless faces, and yet we forget how to truly see.
It is not by accident,
this slow drifting apart,
this careful shaping of hearts into closed rooms.
For a heart that does not open, will not question,
and a soul that does not love,
is easily led.
And it works,
lonely people are easier to move, easier to shape,
easier to be told what to buy,
and will obsessively check a quiet doorstep waiting for the next package to arrive
hoping it'll fill the chasm in their heart.
Real love though ...
the kind that shakes your resolve a little,
that makes you stay when it would be easier to leave,
that kind of thing doesn’t fit in their system,
it breaks it,
it distracts you from the screens, and from their messages on what you need to buy in order to be happy.
So don’t let them turn you cold, don’t dress your heart in armor and call it strength,
because there’s nothing brave about never feeling.
Hold the line,
even when it costs you,
even when it hurts,
because the world they’re building needs you alone,
but a life worth living
starts when you refuse to be.
And love ...
true love between two people is not a small thing,
it is a defiance,
a quiet uprising,
a refusal to become less than what we are meant to be.
So, do not surrender to the silence,
do not mistake distance for wisdom,
or loneliness for strength.
Keep your heart open,
even when the world suggests otherwise,
even when it feels easier to turn away,
because the bravest thing you can do,
in a time that asks you not to feel,
is to say "f**k it",
and choose love anyway.
-Samuel Decker Thompson
You can stand there polished, everything in place, life going great, a moment in time where even your reflection looks like it finally figured things out,
and it still won’t matter to them. they’ll find a flaw, or invent one, or just feel nothing for you at all and they'll call it your fault.
But then there are times,
where life leans on your chest like it wants you to break, where your patience runs thin and your smile forgets how to show up, and some gorgeous human will still look at you right there, in the middle of it, and decide you’re enough just as you are.
Not later ...
not when you fix it ...
not when you get back in shape ...
not when you shine again ...
Now.
The right person
will want you
now.
-Samuel Decker Thompson
She built a life with him
like it would last forever,
measured it in years,
in routines,
in the weight of little hands that would someday trust in hers.
She thought that was security.
It wasn’t.
It was something that could leave.
And it did.
He took the walls,
the foundation,
the noise,
the version of tomorrow
she had already memorized,
the unrealized children she had already named,
and he left her with nothing
but a chair
and too much quiet.
She sat there rocking long enough to understand it.
Then one day, she didn’t.
She stood.
Unfixed, unhealed, but just done waiting.
And the strange thing was,
without all of it,
she realized she finally had room to be whoever she wanted.
-Samuel Decker Thompson
#poetry
I used to think pain had a schedule, like rent due at the end of the month, like something you could prepare for, brace yourself against,
count down to and survive ...
but it doesn’t work like that.
That dagger stabs at you when you are in the middle of pouring coffee, when the morning is quiet enough to hear your own thoughts breathing,
when a song you didn’t choose decides to remember for you.
People say time does something about it,
like it files the edges down,
like it teaches your hands
how to carry what they never asked for,
but all I ever learned
was how to look normal while holding it.
I got better at laughing on cue, better at answering questions no one really listens to,
better at pretending the weight of it all was just part of my posture,
but some nights it still sits beside me,
heavy and patient,
like it knows I am not going anywhere
Some men will leave a goddess,
other men will stay for a demon.
It was never about your beauty,
never about perfection,
never about the peace you brought into his life,
never about how well you cooked, sucked, or fucked.
It was always about the man and
the character within him,
or the lack thereof.
-Samuel Decker Thompson
She did not ask him to change,
she simply loved him as he stood before her,
and in her gentle light something within him shifted, pieces he had carried for years …
quiet disappointments … small regrets …
they loosened their grip as though they no longer belonged.
Her love did not reshape him,
it revealed him,
like an ancient scripture waiting beneath the stone to be deciphered,
like a truth that had been patient enough to endure delay.
And now, when he looks at himself,
he does not see who he was trying to be,
he sees who he was always meant to become as he stands calmly in the warmth she never asked him to earn.
She is his sun,
the first who inspired him to really want to grow and learn.
-Samuel Decker Thompson
I still expect to find you somewhere in my future,
to feel that quiet spark when our eyes first meet.
From that moment on, I know I will care about everything you are doing,
and everything you will ever do.
I'll be fascinated simply watching you move through the world,
I want to be there to bear witness to your struggles and your triumphs,
to guide you through them and applaud you for them,
I will remain by your side in moments of darkness and in your light,
offering a hand when the road is steep,
a smile when the sun returns,
and through it all,
I am confident that you'll pass through every storm
and come back brighter,
because even though the burdens of the world may shape you,
I know you'll never allow it
to break you.
-Samuel Decker Thompson
You do not betray a life by asking it to grow.
There are seasons when the soul becomes aware that it has been standing still too long,
and in that quiet realization a gentle courage appears,
the kind that whispers instead of shouts.
It says you may step forward ... even if the lover beside you continually chooses the comfort of yesterday over the uncertain promise of tomorrow.
There is nothing evil about wanting air, about wanting more sky, about wanting the part of yourself that you buried under patience to come roaring back.
Love does not demand that you abandon the unfolding of your own spirit,
it simply asks that you walk with kindness as you become who you were always meant to be.
So, gather the best pieces of yourself,
the forgotten strength,
the quiet hope,
the small light inside your chest,
and carry them forward like a lantern into the next version of your life.
-Samuel Decker Thompson
This One Is For You
I think of the evenings when the house grew quiet
and even the ticking clock seemed to whisper your name,
and I think of the miles you walked barefoot through years that did not know your gentleness or even care who you really were, or who you would become.
You carried mornings on your shoulders, packed hope into small brown bags for children,
smiled through the tiredness
so no one would see the storm behind your eyes.
You were always stronger than the hurt,
always kinder than the cold words,
always bending toward love
the way sunflowers lean toward a shy sun.
At times you doubted your own reflection,
you turned away from any praise thrown your way
as if it were meant for someone else,
someone braver,
someone brighter.
But you were the light all along,
steady as a porch lamp left on for late travelers,
warm as bread on a winter table,
patient as rain teaching stone how to listen.
There is a melody inside you
that the years tried to silence,
a soft and certain song
that keeps rising,
keeps rising,
keeps rising.
I want you to find the woman I have always seen in you,
the one with roots deep in the earth and kindness in her hands,
and on that journey,
when you meet that timid child within you,
the one who searched the darkest places for love,
hold her gently,
tell her she is safe now,
tell her she is worthy,
tell her she has always been deeply beautifully cherished,
and that it is her own heart that has been loving her all along,
it just never learned how to show it ...
until now.
-Samuel Decker Thompson
I see your hidden soul,
like light beneath deep water,
steady and waiting.
I see your potential
the way dawn sees the horizon before the sun ever rises.
Even when you stumble,
I know the fall is shaping you,
like fire tempers steel,
like waves carving cliffs into quiet cathedrals.
I know you'll always stand tall,
you'll always survive,
no matter how the world tries to break you down.
-Samuel Decker Thompson
Most people talk about love
like it’s a coupon they found in a drawer,
something to use before it expires.
They say it over coffee,
over text messages sent too late at night,
over kitchen tables where the paint is peeling
and the bills are stacked like quiet threats.
They say love is fireworks.
They say love is comfort.
They say love is safety,
or hunger,
or a war you volunteer for.
You'll see love in hospital rooms where machines breathe for someone
who used to laugh louder than anyone else.
You'll see it in a man working double shifts so his kid can have cleats that actually fit.
You'll see it in a woman
who stays too long
because she believes patience is the same thing as devotion.
Some people think love is possession.
They wrap their hands around it like it’s something that might run.
They measure it in passwords shared and locations tracked.
Others think love is freedom.
They leave the door wide open and trust you not to walk out.
I used to think love was intensity,
the kind that keeps you awake,
that makes your heart feel like it’s trying to punch its way out of your ribs.
Now I think maybe it’s quieter than that.
Maybe it’s doing the dishes
when you didn’t make the mess.
Maybe it’s staying soft
in a world that keeps trying
to sand you down.
It's definitely listening to the feelings without getting defensive, just because you want to learn how to be better for them, even if it hurts a little bit beneath your ribs.
I’ve seen people swear they’re in love and forget each other’s middle names.
I’ve seen people say nothing at all and still know exactly
how the other takes their coffee.
There are those who chase it
like it’s a trophy.
There are those who fear it
like it’s a debt collector.
And there are those who have been hurt so badly
they treat love like a rumor,
something other people talk about that they’ve never actually felt.
Maybe love is just what you decide it is.
Maybe it’s a choice you wake up to every morning,
before the mirror,
before the excuses,
before the fear.
Love means so many different things to so many different people,
and then to others,
It means nothing at all.
-Samuel Decker Thompson
You stop handing out mercy like loose change.
You quit rewriting the past
to make it kinder.
You look at the bruise
and call it a bruise.
There wasn't a fog, no accident,
no possible misunderstanding to rescue their reputation.
They knew the weight of their words.
They heard the small sound your heart made
when it trusted,
and still, they leaned in and twisted the knife.
People don’t trip into cruelty.
They walk there knowingly.
They choose themselves over others,
because guarding you would have cost them something.
This is not bitterness.
It is clarity.
Stop fixing the story for them.
Let the truth sit naked on the table.
Gather your heart gently now,
no longer offer it into new hands unguarded,
you can be vulnerable when they show they are safe enough to be trusted.
Learn this one lasting truth;
those who truly love you
recognize what rests in their hands.
They do not gamble with it.
They shelter it without being asked,
stand between it and harm,
sacrifice their own comfort
to keep you warm,
they listen when you are hurting,
and they take steps to repair
any damage they cause,
because love makes them care,
and because loving someone
means not acting carelessly.
-Samuel Decker Thompson
I’ve seen love come in like a storm,
all noise and teeth and trembling walls…
the kind that teaches you to mistake panic for passion,
the kind that keeps you pacing rooms at 3 a.m.,
trying to decode silence,
trying to survive the next mood swing.
I’ve known the weight of waiting
for footsteps in the hallway,
for doors to slam,
for the familiar collapse of another promising day that couldn’t hold itself together for no real reason at all.
I learned to guard every soft part of myself
like it was a secret worth stealing,
learned to flinch at kindness
because kindness never stayed long.
But then something quieter arrived,
something with steady hands
and a way of looking at me
that didn’t ask me to bleed first.
A presence that didn’t withdraw,
didn’t punish,
didn’t make love a battlefield
I had to crawl across just to feel seen.
And my body, slow and doubtful,
kept waiting for the ruin
that never came.
It took time to believe in it,
time to understand
that stillness isn’t a setup,
that warmth doesn’t always disappear,
that some people hold you
without needing to win anything.
And little by little,
I felt the armor loosen,
felt the long ache quiet,
felt myself becoming someone
who could finally exhale.
Secure love softens you in places
you thought were permanently guarding themselves.
A calm voice,
an open door,
a hand that doesn’t pull away,
soft lips that say they'll always stay
no matter what.
Soon you breathe easier,
rest easier,
and find yourself wondering
how chaos
ever bamboozled you
into thinking
it was anything
close to love.
—Samuel Decker Thompson
As of Thanksgiving night it's now been a year, probably the toughest year of my life.
I've tried to do everything right, to keep being there for my kids everyday, to better myself, to evolve, to keep holding out some shred of hope for my family, to let my actions speak louder than the lies, but with each passing day it's become painfully obvious that there was never really anything there worth holding onto, it was always a mirage.
So, it's time to let go and move on, time to stop hiding from this new reality.
Time to return to being the man I was 9 years ago before I was systematically torn down and driven into therapy.
Time to allow people into my life who appreciate who I am and what I have to offer, and who won't scoff at the idea that I am rare and valuable.
It's time ...