Unrealized

What about the thoughts 

we keep inside? 

The words 

that never arrive? 

Gathering in a heap 

of discarded tomorrows 

What of the actions 

that never came to be?

Perhaps every regret 

is simply the ghost 

of a life never lived 

walking alongside 

the one we chose 

What we would have said 

What we should have done 

The pages never populated 

The chances never taken 

The adventures that slipped away 

How many forgettable moments 

in an unremarkable life? 

Who will we be 

when who we could have been 

is gone? 

© Ron Simpson Jr. 

October 18, 2026 

Melpomene & Thalia

Recently my thoughts wandered 

to Melpomene and Thalia 

the sisters of sorrow and laughter 

their faces fashioned 

into masks for distant eyes 

In the Greek theater 

men stood before the crowd 

wearing borrowed expressions 

their joy enlarged 

their grief made visible 

to those too far away 

to see the truth of a face 

The mask was not a hiding place 

It was a lantern 

 

It carried feeling 

beyond the reach 

of the human voice 

But somewhere along the centuries 

we reversed its purpose 

Now we wear laughter 

to conceal heartbreak 

we wear tragedy 

as armor against touch

We paint confidence over uncertainty 

strength over fear 

until the mask 

becomes more familiar 

than the face 

And so we move 

among one another 

a procession 

of Thalias and Melpomenes 

smiling through sorrow 

mourning beneath jokes 

mistaking performance for identity

Perhaps authenticity is not found 

in casting the mask aside

But in remembering 

what it was made for

not to hide the soul 

but to reveal it 

to those sitting farthest away 

© Ron Simpson Jr. 

October 16, 2026 

Ma (間)

The empty has no weight of its own, 

yet it gathers the gravity 

of every missing thing. 

We call it space 

until it refuses to let us move. 

Then we call it longing.

I never knew the burden 

of an empty chair 

until death pulled a man from it.

No one sits there now.

The space remains, 

patient and undisturbed, 

holding the shape of his absence.

They say the empty exists 

so we may appreciate what was 

and imagine what may come. 

Yet this emptiness captures me. 

It finds me wherever I go. 

It creates longing 

and then locks me within it.

Memories once crossed the distance, 

but now they fall short.

The vacant is more than empty.

It binds me to a season 

that no longer exists. 

Where there should be freedom, 

there is captivity. 

Where there should be 

room to breathe, 

I become breathless.

 

My heart is held hostage. 

My mind refuses to move.  

I reach for what was 

and cannot be again.  

Reason eludes me.  

Logic betrays me. 

Understanding abandons me. 

I am lost. 

And the chair remains, 

carrying the unbearable weight 

of nothing at all. 

© Ron Simpson Jr. 

October 14, 2026 

Belonging

There is nothing quite 

like the feeling of belonging. 

To find the place where you fit. 

Without modifications. 

Without adjustments. 

It is not as rare as life 

would have you believe. 

We all spend 

a great deal of our lives 

trying to fit in. 

To be part of the in crowd 

or the out crowd, 

whichever it may be. 

We wear the right clothes. 

We eat the right foods. 

We frequent the right places. 

We adapt. 

We change. 

We suppress. 

We do it all 

to sit at the popular kids table. 

It began in elementary school 

and follows us throughout our lives. 

The desire for companionship 

is inherent within us all. 

We spend our days in places 

we have convinced ourselves 

that we belong. 

But, late at night, 

when darkness rules, 

and the shadows run long, 

we feel it. 

It is the undeniable truth 

that sometimes we don’t belong. 

And perhaps that is not a failure. 

Perhaps belonging 

was never meant to be earned 

through performance. 

Perhaps those places 

that require our constant adjustment 

were never home to begin with. 

Real belonging asks for no costume. 

It does not demand our silence. 

It does not require us 

to become less of ourselves 

to make others comfortable. 

It simply opens the door and says, 

“You can come in exactly as you are.” 

So, be quirky 

be weird

be the odd duck 

Where you belong 

is looking for you too 

Those places exist. 

That person exists. 

Those people exist.

© Ron Simpson Jr. 

October 1, 2026