"Can we please 
turn the heat 
up in here?" 
she screams 
up at the Sun 
in the open sky.
"Just a suggestion," 
she grumbles
as she goes
back inside. 

© 2026   @StaceyBattlestheWorld

I can’t do it, you know
There’s too much at stake. 
I couldn’t ever imagine
Taking a break.

©2025  @StaceyBattlestheWorld

I drop all my leaves 
In a rush for you,
Like the trees around me
The color runs from my face.

All my nerves get blown 
Away with each touch,
Like the caress of winter’s 
Breath upon this place.

There’s a little bit of magic
In the air when you’re near
Like faeries hiding in the wood
But we know they’re there

Making me want to tangle myself 
Wildly in your hair,  
Braid my fantasies into a crown 
That only you will wear.

©2025  @StaceyBattlestheWorld

What is love? you asked me, and I said I wasn’t sure
 I just knew that I had to say that it was timeless -

We step out of time and into each others’ embrace
We step out of ourselves and into each other
We step out of our minds and join to each other.

We lose ourselves to gain us, but I’ve never felt
More found, more discovered, more alive
We step out of feeling into what is beyond
We step out of everything quantifiable, into more.

More is something with its own agenda
More is insatiable, greedy, lusty and wanton
More is beyond everything we thought we knew
More takes its work seriously, binding me to you.

I swore I’d never want more than you, 
Because the more between us never ends.

And so I say that it is timeless, love -
Because it will consume everything, even time;
Because we will always be everything
And everything will never be enough. 

©2025 @StaceyBattlestheWorld

as You fade away 
Some judge and stare
Others ask with their eyes,
“are you okay?”
those words that They 
can’t seem to verbalize

a Few stop to care, but
no one dares to stop
You from being 
detained over there

so They watch helpless
if They watch at all -
but Most just prioritize
and avert their eyes.

©2025 @StaceyBattlestheWorld

drifting
drifting
drifting
if I could
I would -
I wood? –
be
driftwood,
too.
Lazy
floating
summers
of rivers
pooling
around 
my 
blood
like a 
thousand
kites
perched on 
driftwood
beaks down
sipping 
from 
fresh 
cool
waters. 

©2025  @StaceyBattlestheWorld

Writhing it slinks across the floor,
Panting it stretches up toward the door...
Her smile doesn't reach her eyes, anymore.

Helpless it tumbled down the stairs,
Into the cellar where no one cares...
Her smile never catches her unawares, 
anymore.

©2025  @StaceyBattlestheWorld

There’s a light spinning
          in front of my face and
          around, it’s all I can see
the light in your eyes
          move, slowly away from me
          then move, slowly back to me
it’s all I remember this time.

          like a disco ball on the sunrise
          slowly softly swiftly falling
I can’t remember now 
where we were, what we did, but 
I remember your laugh getting closer
          spinning we spin till we drop
          spinning we spun till we dropped
where was I, why am I, who are
          we now find this place, hold
          and then I was there and 
          you were here and there’s nothing
absolutely nothing I can hear
roar of wind rushing past, spin,
          catch me catching you 
          catching this last strong ember 
in your eyes.

Move, slowly around me
          like a disco ball on the sunrise
          slowly softly swiftly falling
together all images blur 
          there is you and me and
          spinning lights in eyes;
that’s my all, that’s my everything
…all I remember from time.

©2025  @StaceyBattlestheWorld

The only horror movie
I want to see this fall 
is one where someone
sees straight through the
deepest layers of my trauma,
burns through all the lies
and BS I tell myself 
so that there is nothing left 
but my quaking, raw fear 
at Being Fully Seen.

Only then will there be 
no more of the 
monsters I have been 
and no more monsters 
that I will become.

©2025  @StaceyBattlestheWorld

golden light
shot through the darkness
from my mind, 
cupped in my hand
illuminating;
I’d had my share of
illusion
and I learned that 
depression
dark as night
feared illusive device.

I am never sad now
never down now
never upset now
just different shades
of happiness and tiredness
expectations always met,
surprised I don’t 
have an ulcer yet,
always bent to please -
these illusions are now
ruling me.

©2025  @StaceyBattlestheWorld

Sometimes, alone at night
I forget everything
In the quiet darkness
And just dream
Of nothing – 
I dream of nothing
When nothing is around;
What greed.

©2025  @StaceyBattlestheWorld

There is nothing left to write
there is nothing left I write
there is nothing left to be left
it is all done, it has all gone awry

there are no words left for this place
but words of nothingness
words of emptiness

[void]

can’t find words
can’t build thoughts
can’t find a reason to write
I’m just sitting here, thinking;
sitting here sinking.

Truth is
I don’t want to think anything.
Truth is
I don’t want to feel anything.
Truth is
I don’t want to think, feel, or write,
I don’t want to wait, sit, or be;
but I don’t want to be nothing.
I don’t want to, it’s just...
I don’t want

for once in my life,
I don’t want -
am I finally satisfied, or
have I stopped being human?

©2025  @StaceyBattlestheWorld

every decade I am reborn
I must molt to fly
mold myself into the sky
mold myself into this 		

person

i've chosen to be.
it's like wandering
through a corn maze 
every new dead end 
must be retraced
to the last wrong

undone

I must choose 
the other way. 
I head forward again
I lose time, but not 
self-respect, only hunger

and thirst

but I packed well
for this journey.
my sweat drips off 
invisible feathers
torn from my skin

by time itself.

my heart is raw 
but beating
and I must choose

confidence
…or die.

©2025  @StaceyBattlestheWorld

all the women I know are dying

they confer in hushed voices:
in teary midnight texts and 
water cooler confessions,
up late nights with sick toddlers - 

fighting to hide the truth from our daughters.

all the women I know are dying

a slow, premeditated death:
they fight for every step,
try to climb out of these depths
with no one to lend a hand in -

because the world has them chained  
        to the failures of madmen.

all the women I know are dying

not from cancers or aggression
but from full-bodied oppression
overburdened with mental, physical,
and even spiritual weight - 

but it is already too late.


©2025 @StaceyBattlestheWorld

you talked and you talked 
and you never cared,
so I listened and I listened
but really I just stood there.

deep inside myself somewhere
I saw something else,
heard something else,
pretended you weren’t there.

eventually
I forgot you were talking, 
waiting for someone who cared.

©2025  @StaceyBattlestheWorld

It’s taken too long 
For humans to realize
We are caught
In a lovers’ snare

Please stop asking,
When you or I?
There is only,
We.

Everything - 
In this universe
In our ideals
In our conflicts
In our choices
In our actions
In our hearts
In our scorn,
Everything,
No matter how
Forlorn -
Everything
That affects you
Will eventually 
Affect me.

There is no greater
Intimacy
Than our shared
Humanity.

©2025  @StaceyBattlestheWorld

I want moments,
I want romance.
I want each step 
of your dance.

I want to scream 
up at your balcony
in the heavy rain
only your name,
only your name.

I want to serenade 
you softly in the dark.
I want each moment.
I want each spark. 

I want moments -
dear gods there’s
not a moment
yet to spare -
so many moments.
I want moments
with you - 
all the moments
that you can bear.

I want a hundred
or maybe two thousand 
very definite, individual
moments together;
now immediately,
and going on
into the distance,
forever.

© 2025  @StaceyBattlestheWorld

The grass
        reaches to greet me 
as I tumble to my knees,
	grasp the soil, the roots
	            dig my 
	hands into the earth,
pull out                 
         stars.

At the end of the driveway,
	staring down the empty street
	wind blowing my hair with whispers
		asking me to leave
		asking me to stay
		asking me 
			to do something bigger
			than people my age do
		asking me
	to do something bigger
	to feel something wilder
		I want to say yes and go -
			not to any place -
		I want to be the wind itself.
	Envelop me!
		Please, wind, take me in;
Make me feel again.

Thunder claps and 
	the winds threaten to fulfill
		my wish. 
The chaos of nature
		my nature, your nature
steady as the wind
takes me in
	and shows me its underbelly
                     disordering my last resolve;
        tidying up the mess within,
laying waste to all self-doubt
                     finding and finessing the
Wild 
         I dream about.	

©2025  @StaceyBattlestheWorld

I break and I break and I break and I break
The constant implosion of
My black hole heart

Just a million breaks
Tearing apart
The galaxy around me
Slowly
Again and again
I break.

There is nothing new under the sun.

©2025     @StaceyBattlestheWorld  

I really should not be
allowed a credit card -
but anyway somehow 
I ordered a 
shrimp scampi pizza 
because maybe I was 
secretly proud of 
what I'd got done today 
(paying off some debt
with the refi)
and also I am 
not ashamed to admit 
that I self-sabotage in 
gloriously delicious ways,
as one does, 
at the end of the world.

©2025  @StaceyBattlestheWorld