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?

The Edge of Return

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth


 

“Once a path is crossed, there is no going back the same.”

The weeks have built like storm layers. First, the whispers, faint but insistent, pressing through the silence until the air itself trembled. Then came the shadows, lengthening across the floor, teaching that stillness is rarely still. Behind each step, a veil, a mask, another curtain drawn back to reveal yet another. Nothing is ever only what it seems.

Smoke drifted next, curling in places where no flame could be seen, carrying its warning and its lure. A door followed, breathing in the stillness, daring someone to open it or wait for it to open itself. And when ears leaned closer, even the walls betrayed their silence, exhaling a hollow breath that carried more memory than any voice could hold.

Now, here at the cliff’s edge, the journey gathers itself. Every whisper, every shiver, every veil, every trace of smoke, every hollow breath presses forward until the ground no longer feels certain. This is where endings and beginnings blur into one.

And the question rises: is the force that follows a who, lurking behind the veil? A where, waiting beyond the smoke? A when, buried in the silence, biding its time until the door swings wide? Or is it only the raw truth of an emotion, held too long, now demanding to be felt?

The cliff gives no answer. It only waits, patient and unmoving, daring the next step.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-
When the ground falls away, is it the body that falls, or the emotions that held on too tight to the silence that was never still? Is it the silence that shatters, or the heart that finally speaks? The answers continue to linger just beyond reach. Week Four is next to arrive.

The Hollow Breath

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

 

“Walls remember even when we forget.”

There is a breath behind the wall,
steady,
unforgiving.

It doesn’t belong to anyone you can see,
but it belongs here,
and it remembers.

The air bends with it,
timbers strain against it,
like the house itself
is carrying secrets too heavy for its beams.

A hollow breath is not empty,
it is filled with what was never spoken,
pressed tight,
compressed into the bones of the room.

You lean closer,
and realize it isn’t just breath.
It is waiting.
It is watching.
It is daring you to hear it fully.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

Do you hear it, the breath behind the door? What if it’s closer than you thought? Is the door a person or place?

The Hollow Door

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth


 “Every door that closes keeps something in, or out.”

The door looked ordinary at first glance. Solid wood and a handle worn with use and a hinge that sung when touched. But not all doors are what they seem. This one breathed. Not in the way lungs fill with air, but in the way walls sometimes exhale when a house remembers too much.

It stood half-open, an invitation or a warning, no one could tell. The silence behind it was heavier than silence should be, weighted as if holding something alive. The choice hovered in the air: step forward and face it, or turn away and never know.

What lies behind such a door is never random. Sometimes it’s memory, sometimes it’s reckoning. But always, it is something waiting to be seen. Healing may come from opening, so may truth and courage.

And so the door holds its place, daring someone to cross the threshold.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-
What if the door opens itself? What then pours into the room, and who will be left standing when it does?

A Smoke Screen

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

Where you see smoke, is only a warning , where you see fire holds the answers.

Smoke doesn’t rise without reason.
It clings,
and crawls along the edges of the air,
and with every breath a warning.

You can pretend it isn’t there,
but your lungs will remind you.
You can deny the fire,
but your eyes will sting with its presence.

Smoke is never innocent.
It is memory of something burning,
or the promise that it soon will.

Sometimes what smolders is anger.
Sometimes sadness,
Sometimes it’s the deception,
that was forced too long into silence,
finally breaking into sparks.

And when it clears,
all that’s left is the trace of
the ashes that say:
you will never unknow this.

There is where the work begins.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-


Is smoke a warning, or a lure? Perhaps the fire it hides has only just begun to burn.

The Second Veil

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“Complexity wears more than one mask.”

It’s easy to believe that once the veil is lifted, the story is done. The mask removed, the lie exposed, the end. But the truth is crueler, more complex. One veil rarely hides alone. Pull it back and another waits, patient, layered, almost mocking in its persistence.

Every revelation comes with its own sting. Relief mixes with dread: relief that one falsehood has been seen, dread that it might not be the last. The dance is endless. Shadows step forward, only to retreat behind new curtains.

Healing doesn’t mean tearing them all down in one reckless rush. Healing is learning to see the veil for what it is, to acknowledge its existence without letting it choke you. To know that deception thrives in layers, and each one you face makes you less blind than before.

Still, the temptation is real: to rip them all away, to demand full truth at any cost. But truth has its own pace. And sometimes the slow unraveling is the only way to survive it.


But what if cutting the thread isn’t enough? What if another hand waits in the dark, with a another surprise before dawn?

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

The Shivers of Shadows

Posted on by Kerri Elizabeth

“

“Stillness is rarely still.”

There is a shiver where silence settles,
not from the cold,
but from the way truth presses against the walls.

Shadows lengthen,
not because the light has shifted,
but because deception stretches farther than we thought.

A pause is never just a pause.
It is a weight.
It is the sound of something unsaid
carving a hollow behind the ribs.

Sometimes I wonder if silence is a shield
or if it is a weapon,
cutting deeper with every moment it holds back.

And yet,
in the same stillness,
a spark waits.
A reminder that even in the grip of hidden lies,
the body knows,
the spirit remembers,
and nothing stays buried forever.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-
When silence finally breaks, will it whisper, or will it roar?

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?