gratitude

In Shadows at the Edge

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Shadows lengthen where truths hesitate to speak.”

The shoreline carried a new weight as evening fell. Shadows crept further across the lawn, stretching toward the water as if trying to claim what daylight left behind. Conversations had thinned, but the sense of being overheard remained. Even in the silence, it felt as though someone was always just beyond the edge, listening, waiting, gathering what wasn’t meant to be shared.

At the cove’s edge, the air tightened. The laughter of summer had faded into a cautious quiet, and still the shadows seemed alive, as if they were listening harder than any ear.

At the edge where silence leans,

shadows breathe between the seams.

Every step feels drawn, contained,

by whispers echo cannot name.

What hides in dusk does not relent,

it waits in silence, unbent..

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

And just when the quiet seemed steady, a shift stirred in the dark,something more than a shadow, something no one had yet faced.

Circles on the Water

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Every ripple begins in silence, yet carries further than the eye can see.”

The cove had grown quieter, though the memory of voices lingered like the aftertaste of summer. A single splash broke the surface, spreading circles out into the stillness, carrying the night’s echoes further than intended. In the distance, laughter rose and fell, as if carried on the wind from a gathering already dissolving into memory. The water revealed what the voices tried to hide, how quickly joy could ripple into unease, how quickly the world reminded you that nothing was ever just surface.

The circles widened, crossing into one another, colliding, breaking apart, reforming. That is how whispers move. That is how truths travel.

Circles widened, one after another,

meeting in silence where voices falter.

Every echo pressed into the cove,

carrying secrets the night could not hold.

What begins in play does not stay contained,

even still water remembers the sounds.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

But when the next circle broke the surface, it wasn’t laughter that carried with it, it was something else, something no one wanted spoken aloud.

Echoes That Return

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Every sound carries further than we imagine, weaving through silence, returning as echoes that remind us nothing is ever truly gone.

The cove was louder than my thoughts,

laughter bending against the stillness,

pressing its way into my chest.

I wanted to disappear,

to quiet what I could not control.

But vanishing has never healed a wound,

it only hides it deeper.

So I stayed.

I breathed.

I noticed.

The ache was not only mine.

It was the echo of every person

who has stood just outside the circle,

close enough to hear joy

but too far to be held in it.

The world is small,

and what we say travels farther than we know.

Words can cross water,

build bridges,

or set fires.

Today I chose to be still,

to let the echo pass through me

without becoming me.

~Kerri-Elizabeth ~

“When the next echo returns, will it stir the stillness like a storm’s edge, or settle in the silence as a truth softened by time?”

The Cove Within Earshot

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Distance is not always measured in miles, but in truth withheld.”

The sound of joy can be piercing when you stand outside of it. Laughter, music, the hum of boats, and it all carries across the water as if it belonged to me, too. But sound has a way of reminding us of what we are not part of.

It is a strange ache, to be so close and yet so far. A hundred feet. A breath of distance. And yet, it might as well have been a hundred miles. Because distance is never only about space. Sometimes it is about what is withheld, the belonging that is denied, the truth that is hidden, the words that never come.

I noticed how my body responded. My chest tightened, my breath grew shallow, as if the noise itself had weight. For a moment, I wanted to disappear into that pain. To quiet it by numbing it. That impulse startled me, not because it was powerful, but because it was new. The thought that not existing, even just for a while, might feel easier than existing with the ache.

But healing asks something different of us. It asks us to stay. To notice what rises, to feel it in the body, and to choose not to vanish. So I walked. I wrote. I lit candles and let salt water hold me. I chose presence, even when presence hurt. And in choosing presence, I found a kind of strength I did not know I had, the courage to sit with what is unbearable without trying to erase myself.

We all face these moments. Maybe not with sound across the water, but with the reminder of where we are not welcomed, of who has turned away, of what no longer includes us. The details may differ, but the ache is the same. The question is not how to erase it, but how to live through it, and in living through it, discover that we are stronger than the silence that excludes us.

In that, what was found, was a new silence that resonated peace, rather than questions or pain, a resilience that screamed, “I’m here, I’m you”.

~Kerri Elizabeth ~

What do we do when the noise around us becomes louder than the peace within us? Do we disappear into it, or do we rise above it and let it sharpen our awareness instead?

Whispers Beneath the Surface

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“What lies unspoken often cuts the deepest.”

The water looked still, but stillness has a way of deceiving. Beneath the surface, a pulse stirred, faint, almost invisible, but alive enough to send ripples across the silence. It wasn’t the kind of ripple you could see in the reflection of the lake; it was the kind you feel in your skin, in the hairs at the back of your neck, in the quickening of your breath when you realize something is there.

Whispers live in places like this. They hide between the cracks of boards on a dock, in the echoes that hang in the rafters of a room, in the way shadows lean farther than they should when the moon stretches them thin. The whispers don’t announce themselves. They don’t ask permission. They linger, and sometimes they take root.

It’s strange how healing can only begin when you stop pretending the whispers aren’t there. For years, you learn to quiet them, to layer silence over silence until it becomes a wall. But silence never silences the truth; it holds it, and held truth always finds a way out.

Tonight, the hold was loud. The whispers pressed harder against the stillness, and there was no denying them. The body knows long before the mind admits it: something is stirring, and it is not done with you.

It might not even be about destruction. Sometimes the truth presses through because it’s desperate to be freed, not because it wants to tear you down, but because it is seeking freedom.

Still, the not knowing can bring its own emotional adventure.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-


What happens when silence can no longer hold what’s buried? When the surface begins to crack, will truth seep gently through, or erupt in a way no one expected?

After the Eye

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

The calm at the center is never the end, only the breath before the breaking.

The eye of the storm

is a dangerous kindness

a pause that lets you believe

the worst has passed.

But brisk breezes always comes,

and when it does,

you learn the shape of your own shelter,

the sound of your own voice

calling yourself home.

After it breaks,

you walk barefoot through the wreckage,

feeling for the edges of what’s still whole.

Not everything scattered

was worth keeping.

Not everything left standing

is meant to stay.

Sometimes survival

is not about rebuilding

it’s about learning

how to breathe

in the spaces

the wind has cleared.

~Kerri-Elizabeth-

The storms we survive are not just weather they are mirrors, showing us what cannot be moved, and what we can no longer carry. This series walks those paths, one day at a time, through the shifting light after the eye has passed. The next part waits just beyond the next gust.

Between the Currents: Patience is acquired

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

Some stand on the shore, torn between the pull of two tides, afraid to lose sight of either horizon.

There are places where the heart feels pulled in opposite directions , a delicate thread stretched between two shores, never sure which way the wind will blow.

Sometimes it is not the storm itself that wears you down, but the weight of holding both the anchor and the sail. One hand clings to the dock, the other reaches for open water, and you are left wondering which will give first.

To love people who stand on different sides is to live in a constant negotiation with yourself ,how to hold loyalty without losing truth, how to be faithful to more than one compass at a time. Those who live there often believe they are keeping the peace, yet they walk on a bridge that sways over a chasm neither side wishes to see.

But bridges creak under the strain. And when the wind shifts, the boards remind you that you cannot belong to both shores without feeling the splinters.

There are moments when you hope for a stand, not a battle, but a quiet, unwavering refusal to join what is wrong, even if it comes dressed in silk and lace. It is the unseen courage you long for, the voice that says, I see the harm in this, and I will not step into it.

When that voice is silent, you feel it in your bones. You watch the gatherings where absence has been engineered, the empty chairs where history once sat. You stand at the edge of the celebration and feel the chill of being placed in the shadows, while strangers are handed the front row.

It is a strange ache, to grieve what is still alive. To watch laughter carry a song that once belonged to your deepest mourning, and realize it is being danced upon without you.

And yet, even in that ache, you may still plant flowers along the invisible fence , sun-warm petals and soft-leafed roses , as both gift and boundary. A way of saying, I see you, I love you, and here is where the water meets the land. Even if the gesture is misunderstood, even if it is whispered against, you know the truth of your own hands and the soil they tended.

Somewhere inside, you know that the journey back to one another is not entirely yours to navigate. Sometimes you cannot swim against both tides. Sometimes you have to anchor to your own truth, and let the currents choose what washes back to shore.

~Kerri-Elizabeth~

But tides never rest for long. Tomorrow, we enter “After the Eye” , where the stillness is a trick of light, and the storm, patient as a predator, waits just beyond the horizon.

Between the Currents

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

Some stand on the shore, torn between the pull of two tides, afraid to lose sight of either horizon.

Between the Currents

The heart

can be moored to two shores at once

each tide whispering, stay,

each wind urging, go.

It is a quiet war,

standing where loyalties divide,

where the bridge beneath your feet

sways with every choice.

but of faces,

A hurricane passes through

not of weather,

words,

and silences.

It tears away the soft things,

flings petals into the dark,

strips truth bare

until it stands trembling in the open air.

When the winds settle,

you walk among what remains

the stones still rooted,

the flowers that refused to bow,

the empty chairs

where once there was warmth.

And you wonder

not how to rebuild,

but whether the house you knew

was ever truly standing.

Some storms

are not meant to be outrun.

They are meant to be sat with,

until the ache becomes a compass,

until the waves return

what was meant to remain.

~Kerri-Elizabeth~

This is part of an unfolding journey through storms that test our footing and winds that strip us bare. Each piece in this series is a step through the wreckage, into the quiet after, where perspective begins to take root. Tomorrow, the tide shifts again and what it carries will not be what it left behind.

The Storm in Satin

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Some storms arrive without thunder , only the rustle of silk and the weight of unspoken things .”

Beneath the vows and music’s sway,

something slithered,

soft as lace against the grass.

Whispers curled like smoke

from mouths that had never tasted the truth,

passing from palm to palm

until the story grew legs

and ran in circles beneath the tent.

Eyes met with a knowing

that knew nothing at all.

Confidence stitched from secondhand threads,

woven by those

who never thought to ask

where the fabric came from.

Nature has always known this dance ,

coyotes cry into the dark,

summoning the pack without question,

rivers deliver branches

to strangers downstream,

the ocean shifts her voice

without leaving her shore.

And we, standing on the edge,

felt the tide beneath the satin.

I let it move.

I did not throw my stone to quicken the waves.

For I have learned

that reaction sinks faster than truth

and truth always swims.

It comes ashore in its own time,

dripping with the weight of what was hidden,

ready to dry in the sunlight.

~Kerri-Elizabeth~

This piece is part of a new unfolding — a series where poetry becomes the lantern for a path lined with shadow and light. Over the coming months, fragments will surface, like shells along a tide, carrying both the ache and the healing of a story still writing itself. Some truths will arrive quietly, some will roar, and each will ask the reader to walk slowly, to see what is revealed when the water recedes.

The Wedding Next Door

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Not every wall is built of stone. Some are stitched in silence.”

Through the green veil of hedges,

laughter spills like champagne,

music drifts over water dressed in light,

and satin skirts sweep across the grass

as if the earth beneath them

has never trembled.

It looks like joy from a distance.

It always does.

But I have learned

that some celebrations are sewn

with hidden thread,

pulled tight by unseen hands.

There is a way shadows move through a crowd

quiet weaving,

like scales brushing against silk,

never noticed by the ones

who clap the loudest.

We stand in the space

between knowing and speaking,

on our side of the wall,

watching the choreography unfold

without a single step meant for us.

The air feels heavy

with unsaid things,

but the sun still lays its gold

across the water,

reminding me

there is always light

beyond the tangle of branches.

Some stories take years to write.

Some are already written and only need the light to find them.

This one has been threading itself through many summers, people and places.

And writing unravels pain

~Kerri-Elizabeth~

This post marks the beginning of a new series—a weaving of poetry, story, and healing that will slowly unfold in the months ahead. Each piece will carry both the rawness of truth and the light of perspective, inviting you to walk with me through shadows and sunrises, uncovering what has been hidden, holding space for what has been lost, and discovering the quiet strength that rises in the telling. This is the start of an unraveling, one thread at a time.