This is my heart. This is my soul.

Poetry by Stefan Huber Full poems on versegold.substack.com

[versegold]

I - Archive

Everything said instead — words.

Sunshine, my barista of choice, sleeps somewhere in my mind, returns nowhere within reach.

Priestess — your smile, your words, still arranged in me like something I once meant.

I stay behind the line, take what is given, leave it there.

Only this: I said it. It remains.

[versegold]

The Second-Best Coffee

Whatever your name was, I didn't ask when we talked before I left —

two questions no one asks but me.

You answered them, and you seemed kind.

I didn't tell you that you were the second-best coffee maker I ever met in that café.

The taste still lingers, though we never met again.

Next week we draw closer, filling the half year, and nothing has changed —

the film stored somewhere of her smiles and movements.

And I am no longer ready to watch it.

As Sunshine isn't coming back, I believe, my words remain.

That's all.

[versegold]

Nicole or Renée

Maybe, Nicole, I would call you. Maybe Renée— a name unknown where I live.

I see brown eyes.

And a life I meet only sometimes when I pay for it. Not today.

You are somewhere I may never know while I remain.

In your youth I glimpse a life stranger than mine.

Alone we are here, today.

A wall. A we. Free— and between us the words never said, never shared.

We are the ones we are.

For a moment it feels simple.

Everybody likes you, Nicole or Renée,

as you offer beans in hot water,

simple and warm for passing days.

And Sunshine is somewhere I do not know.

There you are.

And I am nowhere, with nowhere to go.

[versegold]

Where Your Eyes Are Now

To sing the melody words flowing free a gifted barista returns when your smile is all my memory holds and you are gone for five months.

My words could not bring you back to me where I could see, hear, feel you.

And I hope you are happy, wherever someone can see your eyes and listen to your voice.

Thank you, Sunshine. Thank you for the memories.

[versegold]

When Souls Were Free

In the night I met you in my dream, and we were friendly with each other, our souls free, no thoughts between us of what was, what couldn’t be, what shouldn’t be to keep us apart.

It was pure as dew on leaves.

We were friends, beings sharing something positive.

What buttons did your voice press inside of me?

I have questions without answers.

[versegold]

Letting Sunshine Go

I am walking on the beach, and in the distance I see a boat with Sunshine on it, drifting away from the shore.

With a smile, I can let her go as the earth keeps spinning, and I walk on without the ropes I held for so long.

Maybe one day the boat returns with Sunshine; I don’t know.

For today, and the day after, the distance grows as I rise again.

[versegold]

Learning to Run When Words Run Out

Silence — I find silence, and no more words in my ears from the women I wrote the most about in 2025.

I am finding joy in running in my short trousers. It is winter, I thought, for the first time noticing the cold as wet wind pressed against my legs, and for the first time I thought about wearing long trousers; this is one thing I can change.

Me in a jungle of life, me outside in the world, me allowing other people to open the doors I held shut.

Me just smiling and listening to beautiful music.

[versegold]

Whenever I'm Ready

It feels like you are stuck in my mind, and I can’t find a way to loosen the hold, to let you go, while the world keeps turning, everything shifting, and I still hold on to the woman you were months ago, as if you hadn’t changed, as if you, too, were frozen in time, bound to a memory inside my mind.

I talked with Miran— there is a way, certainly, in letting go, in making room for new ideas to enter.

Whenever I’m ready.

[versegold]

Where I Am

You no longer ghost through my mind, you stop by, sometimes, and leave again. The memory is there, but it doesn't push, the months in between have weight, days, evenings, me. I still remember where I sat, the sound of your voice, the day, my shorts, the moment, but it doesn't hold me captive. Something has changed, the moment stands still and I move on, you are not where I am, and that's true. Other people hear your voice, and I hear mine, when I speak, when I laugh, when I'm silent. I live, not somehow, I am here. The memory no longer sings, it sounds soft, it fades out, when everything is different without you, our ritual was, and is over. Where I am, is my heart.

written with Miran

[versegold]

No after

You ghost through my mind, the memory is awake, of the last time, the four months in between are irrelevant to the film in my head. I can see you, hear you – the sound of your voice, where I sat, of all days wearing my shorts, that moment. Nothing has changed, the moment flits away and you are not where I am, other people hear your voice and I live, somehow. There is no after, only memory sings, sounds, resonates, as if you were still here, when everything is different without you, our ritual: forgotten, lost, over?

Where are you, your heart?

[versegold]

Sunshine

Then I find a video and think it is you at first— thoughts flashing, a light inside.

I watch, thinking this could be you living a life, making choices that have nothing to do with me, that you don’t need me, that you are free to go wherever you want, and I am here in front of the screen.

I finally understand it isn’t you I see, that I am drifting through all that exists and was never meant to stay.

Longing is a dagger in my heart.

I miss you, Sunshine.

[versegold]

10,000 Days Between Us

The ghost of 1997 returned in my sleep, as if we had never left the town where we first met, sharing cigarettes on the bridge outside the building we were meant to enter to learn how to leave.

We’ll stay in touch, you said one day. I could never be yours, you said the next.

At the hotel you had a different room.

Over ten thousand days apart, in my mind, still here.

[versegold]

Sometimes

Sometimes I dive too deep into my own troubles to think about other writers, and when I am ready, the words appear and I see your name again, @aubriestar, whoever you are — and I find words I never knew existed, carefully crafted into poems offering me and the world a loving heart and places of beauty I have never seen.

They are here. They exist. They are given to the world by @aubriestar.

Thank you for sharing.

[versegold]

Stuck in the Pattern, Open to Change

The patterns in my brain cry out to feed the same words into the machine again, as the two women so often mentioned once opened endless streams of consciousness I can let flow, again and again.

The idea feels like placing myself on a carousel, spinning on and on.

How do I find new paths, routes I can take?

How do I establish new ways of thinking, let the patterns rest, stay open to unfamiliar ideas.

[versegold]

B6. Next Time (or Maybe Never)

I left our stage and won’t return until I know it is you in control— maybe never again, after all.

Another memory? Words written, letter after letter, with no known impact on you.

If these ABCs ever mean something, I will learn it.

Maybe we meet by chance, destiny, whatever— somewhere, to start anew.

I've been writing here for a while.

Now I'm collecting the best of it — and what comes next — in one place.

versegold.substack.com

Poems in English and German. Free to start. Always honest.

[versegold]

B5. A Shadow at the Station

I pass by and see hair bound like yours. I decide to enter, to give it a chance.

Inside, I quickly see that my mind dreamed, hoped, longed— only to realize it isn’t you.

Other women wear their hair similarly— a practical choice for working.

It doesn’t matter anymore. It won’t change anything.

I drink my coffee; it is good, not the same as yours.

I leave, this time forever.

[versegold]

B4. Something Shifts

In the presence of your absence, I feel okay.

There is nothing I need to worry about. Everything that happens feels like a gift— the joy of your coffee, your smile, the laughter lingering in my ears.

The past returns, and I can see a today unfolding; I am in between.

Nothing happens, nothing changes.