Mental Health

Limerence 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

I write to you from inside the storm,
and from the doorway where I watch it form.
I have loved you mostly inside my head,
a theater of scenes that never get said.
You appear, then vanish, a flickering sign,
and my heart runs after what is never quite mine.
I call this love, but it burns like a fever,
a vow to a ghost and a distant believer.
I rewind small moments until they all blur,
a glance, a breath, the way you never were.
You stay perfected, framed in my mind,
and I fade smaller just to keep you kind.
I have abandoned myself chasing your name,
walking over glass while calling it flame.
Each silence from you becomes a loud judge,
each crumb of regard, a banquet I won’t budge.
Your armor is heavy, your doors stay closed tight,
yet I camp at the gate, praying you’ll turn toward the light.
You retreat into distance, I rush into fire,
thinking if I burn enough, you’ll feel desire.
I have studied our pattern like scripture and code,
watched it etch scars in my nervous road.
You step back whenever I try to draw near,
and I step in closer every time you disappear.
The gap between us is more than just space,
it’s all of my effort poured into your grace.
Now a new voice trembles under my skin,
asking why I keep losing myself to not win.
It tells me love is not meant as a chase,
not an endless exam I must constantly ace.
It whispers my worth is older than you,
that my pulse didn’t start when you came into view.
So I gather my pieces from altars and floors,
and start closing shrines with your name on their doors.
I turn these letters inward for the first time,
writing truth to the self I left out in the grime.
I step back, not to wound or accuse,
but to finally stop making myself the one I lose.
I still ache, I still want, I still remember your face,
yet the fantasy no longer gets to set the pace.
I walk away on unsteady, unfamiliar legs,
carrying both my longing and unanswered begs.
Somewhere beyond this unfinished, jagged bend,
something real may rise—if I dare not write the end.

RSP

…

DCG

Screenshot

Still looking 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

Still Looking

A poem for the people who have studied themselves and are still a little lost

I have been taking myself apart for years

and still I can’t explain the wreck

I know the diagrams, I’ve read the books

and still something’s caught in the neck

I’ve sat with therapists in quiet rooms

and walked out with the same old ache

the mirror offers nothing I don’t know

and still I can’t sleep when I wake

I know exactly how I pull away

I know the name of every wall

I built the taxonomy, laid it out flat

and then I went and did it all

There was a child who learned that love was leaving

who waited by a window every night

and when love finally stayed I found a reason

to stand up and turn off the light

The damage doesn’t stop when you discover it

it doesn’t care what you have named

it bleeds right through the bandage of your learning

and someone new gets stained

I’ve handed people maps of all my damage

said here’s the wound, here’s where it leads

and then I watched myself go right along

and plant the same old seeds

But something in the writing keeps me grounded

it pulls me back to what is real

not fixed, not freed, just willing to return

and say again what I still feel

There is a dignity in looking twice

in going back when nothing’s changed

the work is not the cure, the work is witness

a record of the strange

Fragility is not the proof of failure

the crack is where the light comes through

the fool who names his folly has more standing

than the one who never knew

I am not a villain for the wounds I carry

but I’m the one who gets to choose

I know the punchline now — it’s still worth laughing

at what I couldn’t bear to lose

About This Poem

I’ve been writing about myself for over fourteen years — the patterns, the contradictions, the gap between what I understand and what I actually do — and I still don’t have a tidy answer. That used to embarrass me. It doesn’t anymore, quite. What I’ve come to believe is that the examined life isn’t a problem to be solved; it’s a practice to be kept. This poem is about the specific frustration of knowing yourself well and still finding yourself at the same old crossroads — and why I think that frustration, named honestly, is worth more than a false arrival. If you’ve ever read something about attachment or self-sabotage and thought yes, that’s exactly it and then watched yourself do the thing anyway, you already know what this poem is about. My blog and Substack, going on fourteen years now, are built for the people who are still in that gap — not defeated by it, just honest about it.

Who This Is For

For the people who feel things deeply but can’t always find the words — and for whom someone else’s words, when they land right, feel like being heard for the first time. For the people sitting in the middle distance between belief and doubt, between knowing and doing, between who they were and who they’re trying to become. For anyone who has ever understood their own damage completely and still had to live through it anyway. That’s who I write for. That’s you.

…

DCG

Screenshot

If you never healed from what hurt you 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

If you never heal from what hurt you

You’ll bleed on people that never cut you

If you never healed from what hurt you
You’ll bleed on people that never cut you
We carry storms in chambers of the chest
And call it strength to never take a rest
The mind builds monuments to silent pain
While teaching lips to say we are okay again
A child once learned that love could disappear
So now the grown-up heart negotiates with fear
We sharpen grief into a guarded tongue
And wound the ones who never did us wrong
The past is not a place that stays behind
It leaks through cracks in memory and mind
Each scar a thesis written in the skin
Defending why we let no one come in
But pain unattended does not fade away
It reorganizes how we think and stay
We measure kindness with a cautious eye
Expecting every promise is a lie
Yet still the soul remembers softer things
A quiet hope that healing someday brings
The truth is not that broken people fall
It’s how they rise still carrying it all
And sometimes drop the weight on those nearby
Not out of malice—but they don’t know why
We are not villains in the lives we shake
Just humans shaped by every fracture we make
But knowledge asks a duty to begin
To face the dark we’ve buried deep within
Because awareness is the first repair
A choice to tend the wounds we used to wear
Not every hurt deserves to be passed down
Not every silence needs to be a crown
We can unlearn the language born of pain
And teach the heart to trust itself again
To pause before the anger takes its turn
And ask what deeper truth is left to burn
Healing is not forgetting what was done
But choosing not to harm another one
So when we stand at edges of our past
We learn which parts of us are built to last
And in that moment—quiet, fierce, and true
We stop the bleeding others never knew

RSP

…

DCG

Screenshot

Specious habits of perception 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

When you speak your truth, I hear a different sky. .
Your words are rain, but my history makes them dry. .
You say it was a joke, I feel a hidden knife. .
Your laugh is light, my chest recalls another life. .
We stand in the same room, but wear a different past. .
My shadows move so slow, your joy runs bright and fast. .
You only see the surface, the shrug, the turning face. .
I’m drowning in an ocean you call a shallow place. .
I judge you as careless, you judge me as cold. .
We both are reading stories that were written old. .
My mind collects its proof, each glance a heavy stone. .
I build a quiet prison and then call it “home.” .
Your silence feels like anger, your distance seems like blame. .
But maybe you are frightened, and cannot voice your shame. .
I cling to my opinions like a shield of rust. .
They cut into my fingers while I name them “trust.” .
The mirror of illusion hangs inside my head. .
It shows me what I fear, not what you really said. .
Old injuries awaken when your eyebrows rise. .
I paste a former villain over your new eyes. .
These specious habits guide me, unseen but in control. .
They whisper, “You’re a victim,” and tighten round my soul. .
I notice how I flinch before you even move. .
I’m fighting ancient battles you never asked to prove. .
One day the strain is heavy, the argument repeats. .
We’re circling the same old wound on different streets. .
I feel the quiet cracking of the tale I wear. .
A softer voice inside me asks, “What if you’re not fair?” .
“What if your righteous anger is only half the frame? .
What if your sacred story is just one part of the game?” .
I pause before responding; the script begins to slow. .
A strange and aching honesty steps in and says, “Let go.” .
I tell you, “When you leave the room, I feel erased.” .
You answer, “When I stay too long, I feel displaced.” .
We stare at this new moment like a foreign shore. .
Two private worlds colliding through an open door. .
No one is the villain; the lens itself is flawed. .
We’ve worshiped our perceptions like a quiet god. .
You share the weight you carry, the shame you never named. .
I see how my suspicion kept your heart ashamed. .
We speak of early losses, of nights that shaped our sight. .
How hunger taught us both to fear another’s light. .
The room does not grow perfect; the pain does not dissolve. .
But now we stand together with a will to solve. .
We promise not to worship every thought we think. .
To question quick conclusions standing on the brink. .
To clean the dirty window where our fears have slept. .
To honor what we’ve lived, but not be wholly kept. .
In time, the habit changes, though slowly, line by line. .
Our eyes grow more transparent; your story touches mine. .
I learn that understanding is a costly fee. .
It asks my proud perception not to center me. .
So when I feel that tightening that says, “You’ve been betrayed.” .
I breathe, and ask more gently how this scene is made. .
I look for hidden sorrows behind the harsh display. .
I hold my judgments loosely, let some wash away. .
The specious habits weaken when we dare to see. .
That truth is rarely simple, and seldom just “for me.” .
In this, a quiet mercy rises, slow but real. .
We trade our shrinking armor for a wider field to feel. .
We will still make errors; the old ghosts sometimes call. .
But now we walk more open, less certain of our wall. .
And in that humble seeing, a truer life begins. .
Not free of all illusions, but free to loosen their thin skins. .

…

DCG

My soul compass 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

Lost in the turning, I wander the haze.
The heart keeps seeking a brighter blaze.
The compass trembles, unsure where to steer.
The voice inside whispers, “You’re still near.”
Shadows of failure cling to the skin.
Yet dawn reminds me I’m born to begin.
Faith is fragile, a flicker in bone.
Still, grace leans close — I am not alone.
I walk through tempests with tethered eyes.
Truth unveils how the broken rise.
Love feels distant, its outline torn.
But scars are the proof of a soul reborn.
Attachment wavers, the self unsure.
Yet grace repairs what grief can’t cure.
The mind replays what the heart conceals.
But prayer unmasks what pain reveals.
I falter often, lost in despair.
Then Christ reminds me to cast my care.
The map I drew has burned away.
Still, light breaks through the ash and clay.
Each aching step rewrites my name.
The Lord restores the will to flame.
I gather lessons from every fall.
For bruises can be our greatest call.
Confusion whispers, “You’ve lost your place.”
Yet mercy meets me, face to face.
Bowlby spoke of longing’s chain.
God reshapes it through healed pain.
The insecure heart learns to trust.
When love is rooted beyond the dust.
The anxious soul yearns for hold and keep.
But heaven’s arms embrace so deep.
Each wound a teacher, each loss a friend.
They guide the soul toward its true end.
The chaos swirls, and yet I stand.
For faith was never a steady land.
It’s forged in fire, tested by cost.
Found in surrender, never lost.
The world instructs through loss and strain.
No tear is wasted, no effort vain.
Confusion yields what pride denies.
That wisdom blooms where the ego dies.
The compass spins, yet still aligns.
With truths the heart in silence finds.
We learn by falling, rise by grace.
Reborn, renewed, we find our place.
Every storm becomes a scroll to read.
A script of growth our hearts still need.
The path to light is rough and long.
But the weary soul grows strong through wrong.
So let the tempests bruise and bend.
For they are means, not the end.
In every loss, a sacred clue.
The world refines what is most true.
The compass turns — the heart obeys.
And faith becomes the soul’s new blaze.
We walk through shadow, anchored in day.
For God Himself lights up our way.

…

DCG

The exoneration of regret 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

Poem: The Exoneration of Regret

  1. I stare into the wreckage of my then,
  2. The echoes answer softly, “Here we met.”
  3. I catalog the harm I did back when,
  4. Each memory stamped with one dark word: “Regret.”
  5. I thought that flogging thought would make me clean,
  6. As if self‑hate could pay another’s debt.
  7. I wore my shame like armor, hard and mean,
  8. Yet every plate was forged from unpaid fret.
  9. I knelt before the altar of “Too late,”
  10. And prayed to be condemned and not forget.
  11. I called it holy never to feel great,
  12. As if joy proved I’d learned nothing from the upset.
  13. But sorrow, when it listens, learns to bend,
  14. It does not need a noose around its neck.
  15. The point is not to never find an end,
  16. But let remorse turn forward, not back‑check.
  17. I hear a Voice that does not flinch at crime,
  18. It names the wound and will not soft‑correct.
  19. Yet after truth has finished taking time,
  20. It opens up a road I can’t expect.
  21. “You cannot change the script of what you did,”
  22. It says, “but you can change what follows yet.”
  23. “You are not only what your worst self hid,
  24. You are the one who now can make a new beget.”
  25. So I release the courtroom in my head,
  26. Where I was judge, accused, and harsh cadet.
  27. I trade the endless trial for bread instead,
  28. And feed the part of me I used to vet.
  29. I visit those I’ve harmed with open eyes,
  30. Not asking them to cancel every debt.
  31. I give them space to answer or revise,
  32. While owning what I broke without reset.
  33. In learning how to grieve without self‑hate,
  34. I learn that punishment is not the same as sweat.
  35. The work is walking different through the gate,
  36. Not kneeling in the ashes just to fret.
  37. So let the gavel fall on shame’s old throne,
  38. Let mercy write the terms of my new bet.
  39. I carry what I’ve done, but not alone,
  40. For Love has signed The Exoneration of Regret.

…

DCG

The want to aspire 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

Dane learned early what silence meant inside a crowded room,
His father’s eyes were weathered stone, his mother’s voice a sigh.
He built a fortress out of fear, a childhood half in bloom,


Where questions fell like broken glass, and wounds refused to die.
He carried anger like a torch; it kept the night at bay,
While friends grew up, he merely grew in walls of self-defense.
Every smile felt counterfeit, each kindness slipped away,
Because trust, he thought, was weakness cloaked in fine pretense.
But time has teeth, and youth decays when faith’s denied too long,


He left his home to chase a dream that seemed both fierce and frail.
A college city called his name, the hum of human throng,
Where people spoke of meaning more than money, fame, or mail.
There, books became his quiet balm—he learned the mind’s design,
That wounded hearts constrict themselves, repeating what they know.


He saw his parents mirrored then, their fear was also mine,
A curse in need of breaking, if one dared to let it go.
In lecture halls, he met his ghosts in Freud and Maslow’s word,
In classmates’ eyes he saw himself with empathy renewed.
The truth was simple, yet profound—the past could be deferred,


But not denied: to heal, one must confront what once was crude.
One late night by the river’s edge, his thoughts became a prayer,
Not to some god beyond the sky, but something deep within.


He whispered thanks for every hurt that sculpted him aware,
For only through his fracture could he grow beyond his skin.
He started calling friends again, though trust came slow and odd,
Began to hear his mother’s tears, not as a form of blame.
Forgiveness came like gentle rain from some forgiving god,


Or maybe from that hidden place where love and logic came.
Through understanding, Dane rebuilt the house he’d burned before,
With windows wide to let in air, not walls to shut out pain.
He learned that strength was not the fist but opening the door,
To let compassion find its way through every loss and gain.
Now when he speaks, his words are scarred, but tender at the seam,


He tells the young that desperation isn’t just despair.
It’s sometimes the great crack that lets through a deeper dream,
The place where broken boys become the men who finally care.
For Dane, the past still whispers soft, but doesn’t hold his hand,
He knows that love is learned, not found, through patience more than pride.


From wounded child to thinking man, he’s come to understand—
That pain, when faced, transforms to peace no rage can ever hide.

…

DCG

Casualty of loss- redacted

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

– “Casualty of Loss”

I woke to find my name erased from stone,

A casualty of loss, dismissed, alone.

The photographs still hang but look away,

Their eyes recede like tides at end of day.

The room remembers more than I recall,

Its silent witnesses outnumber all.

I trace the dust where once your coffee steamed,

The warmth has left, but still the mug is dreamed.

We built our days like castles out of sand,

Pretending tide could bargain with our hand.

The sea arrived as if on quiet feet,

And swallowed every claim we called complete.

Now meaning limps, a soldier from the war,

Unsure what any sacrifice was for.

My thoughts grow teeth and circle in the night,

They gnaw the ribs that sheltered once-delight.

I pace the narrow hallway of my mind,

Each door is locked by something left behind.

The mirror will not answer when I speak,

It only shows an echo, gray and weak.

I lost you once, but then I lost my way,

As if your leaving emptied out the day.

The clocks still move, but time has gone askew,

It limps in circles, always back to you.

I bargain with my ghosts for one reprieve,

They only nod and whisper, “Let it grieve.”

The world outside still riots into bloom,

Yet each bright petal mocks this inner gloom.

I walk through crowds, a stranger in my skin,

A vacant house with broken floors within.

The mind replays the moment things were torn,

A film that will not stop or be re-scorn.

Self-doubt sits down and pours another drink,

It toasts the story where I always sink.

I tell myself the fault is all my own,

And crown my shame with thorns I’ve overgrown.

But somewhere in this maze a window waits,

A crack of sky that wider light creates.

I hear a distant song, a stranger’s tune,

It braids with wind and wanders past the moon.

The melody remembers what I’ve lost,

Yet hints that nothing loved is ever tossed.

I open up a vein of honest tears,

And wash the rust from long-neglected years.

The heart, though bruised, still trembles when it hears,

That love outlives our damage and our fears.

I stand amid the ruins, breathing slow,

A casualty of loss, but not of hope below.

The scar will outline where the wound once bled,

A quiet map from brokenness to bread.

…

DCG

The post “A Casualty of Loss” is protected on the site, but the tag listing shows it grouped under “Existential Bewilderment,” alongside themes of disconnection, alienation, and the slow psychological erosion that comes from losing what once sustained a person’s sense of meaning and belonging. What can be said with confidence is that the title and context signal someone who has been inwardly damaged by loss—of love, identity, or connection—struggling to understand how that loss has altered their way of being in the world.[thundergodblog]

A walking contradiction

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

Are you really trying to hurt me?

Was that your intent?

Are you aware of how that sounds?

 The messages that you sent 

I know you self protect and not self reflect

And I can certainly empathize

But by now you’re old enough to learn

 How to navigate your fear and moralize 

“Defensive exclusion“

Is just running away

Raising your armor

The impulse to flee and not stay

“Defensive distancing“

Self preservation, your first trigger reaction

You freeze up, suppress and avoid

But she will never heal

When you always feel annoyed

You keep me close enough to feel good

But far enough to feel safe

I know your dis regulated

this language, I try to interface 

A funny thing happened to me

On my way to a dream

My subconscious no longer my filter

I see things for what they are

And not for what they seem

You might ask me

Just how I may know

The drops in my water are methylene blue

No foggy brain in my sleep-As my dreams will show

I see all the breadcrumbs you left

A passive – aggressive, communication style

But you hide behind your cowardice

Pretending behind the smile

I see you for who you are

I’ve forgiven you for who you’ve become

I’m strong enough to walk away

What’s done is done

You can only pray so much

For a trapped and bitter soul

The work is left only for you

To climb out of your shame based hole

I painfully know this problem

And there are boundaries that I must explain

I pray every day for a healing

I rely on my faith and I will not complain

May peace find you

There really is no other way

You must face your fear head on

Before you find yourself in decay

RSP

…

DCG

Yet here I stand 

~ DC ~ Leave a comment

see the walls you raise,

built from pain you cannot show,


Yet here I stand, a patient guide

through shadows that you know.


Your silence is a language

pain taught your heart to speak,


But my faith gives me courage, gentle strength that will not leak.
Your fears are roots as old as wounds left by your father’s hand,
I sense the trembling in your soul that few could ever understand.
But I don’t flinch from what’s unseen, or from the days you run and hide,


Instead I’ll always reach for you—your journey is my greatest pride.
For healing moves in circles wide, not lines that curve and end,
And every time you stumble, dear, I’ll lift you once again.


If shame and sorrow bind you still, in chains you never chose,
My love will be a steady light each time your old fear grows.


You think you are the sum of hurt, of parents who could not stay,
But I see the woman fighting through, her heart lost in the fray


Each setback is not final, nor proof of doomed defeat,


We kneel together in the faith that makes our union sweet.


I know the path is jagged, and patience wears so thin,


Yet with every scar uncovered, I pray new trust begins.


You’re not required to fix yourself, nor please me with your grace,
It’s only asked you let me in, to share this hallowed space.


Because your worth’s not measured by how fast you heal anew,


Or by the perfect grace you show—your value is just you.
I’ll be here through the winters, and when hope feels far away,
As long as it takes, I’ll stay and stay—by your gentle side, I’ll stay

RSP

…

DCG