Protection
Born of a wound
not a bruise
but the kind that cuts
and keeps cutting
long after the skin closes
A hard shine
grown in the dark
Impermanence
A victory forged
around the weakest place in me
layer after layer
laid over the nerve
that would not stop screaming
Guarded
We guard what we make
with the same shaking hands
that failed to stop the hurt
The songs
The poems
The griefs
They gleam
because they cost blood
A treasure and a wound
Revelation
To reveal them
is to open the seam again
let the air search
for what still remembers pain
It asks timing
It asks courage
It asks a witness
who will not turn away
Beauty
We learn, slowly
Beauty isn't always gentle
It forms from fractures
from pressure
from what almost unmade us
But not every wound
belongs in the light
Some pearls
stay buried
dense with truth
bending the story
we never speak aloud
their weight
steadily carving us
into who we become
There are pearls
that do not need to be seen
for them to matter
© Ron Simpson Jr.
November 16, 2025
