I knew someone who grew up with little support and high expectations, believing he had to be good to be loved. He tried to be pure, kind, and true, but never realized it was about relationship, not rule-following. When he couldn’t live up to it, he gave up and ran. Pathfinder is a reminder of grace for anyone who’s tried to earn what was always meant to be a gift. You never could have been good enough—He never asked you to be. You were never meant to be enough, only to be His.

This piece pulls the reader into the intoxicating grip of a connection too intense to question, until it turns unsettling. Written in the voice of a manipulator, it immerses you in the rush of being fully seen, chosen, and adored, while dread slowly builds beneath the devotion. The trap tightens mid-spell, and then you're left with the inconsolable grief of being ripped away by those who know better, before the illusion could unravel on your own terms.

He spoke in riddles and warnings, but what I remember most wasn’t the conspiracy, it was the anguish beneath it. This is my attempt to sit with that fear and make room for someone whose pain did not always speak plainly. To me, the issue isn’t whether his theories were right or wrong. It’s about the unseen torment of being labeled “crazy,” dismissed, and left alone to sit with the noise no one else can hear.

This poem is about discernment, and recognizing when a hiss masquerades as holiness. There was a time when someone close to me hid control behind concern, and invited me to second-guess the very blessings God had already given me. It took months to identify the cause of my discomfort, but God had been warning me about this unhealthy dynamic all along, speaking through symbols in my environment, gently cutting through the fog she cast.

Despite the world’s attempts to define me, I discovered a love so powerful that it reshaped everything I thought I knew. This poem captures a moment of resurrection, when I found myself dead to every dangerous lie I had internalized, and ultimately, to the version of myself those lies had shaped. It is a declaration that no matter what, I belong to Jesus.

I spent years longing for something. I didn’t know if it was for apology, a chance to kick his teeth in, or just the truth. But I only walked free when I loosed my grip, and let forgiveness do what revenge never could. Now, my heart longs for God to redeem his. I want communion, the kind of healing only Heaven can hold.

I wrote this poem in the aftermath of a friendship that went from kindred to catastrophic. Most of us have unfortunately met someone who claims to love God, but speaks with more slurs than Scripture. It cuts even deeper when that person once appeared genuine, only to make a mockery what you hold sacred. This piece confronts a betrayer disguised as a brother, and the grief of realizing you were never following the same light.

This is a poem for my neighbour who died by suicide. I only spoke to him twice, and I regret that deeply. In hindsight, it was my dog who showed more courage and love than I did. This piece is my attempt to understand what it really means to love thy neighbour and reflect on why silence felt safer to me than obeying the Holy Spirit’s nudge when I was called to act with bold compassion.

I loved marine life before I loved him, back when wonder lived behind aquarium glass. But beneath the glass came to mean something else entirely. Someone I never should have spoken to managed to reach me while I was on a trip to the aquarium, his messages lighting up the phone screen while jellyfish floated past. This poem swims in that double meaning: the creatures in the tank that once had my full attention, and the glass screen through which he lured me closer. I thought I was exploring. I didn’t realize I was being studied, too.