Elaina, a RISE Healthy Housing and Support Services Supported Housing resident, shares this dynamic and powerful poem, “The Stopwatch” that she wrote while processing her grief over the loss of a love. Writing and creating poetry is a great way for many people to self-affirm their personal power and creativity. Thank you Elaina for sharing your poems with us.
It happened in a millisecond.
Barely a moment in time.
You were there, then gone.
Eight years later, I’m still crying.You possess my heart
With your very first hello.
Love struck from the start,
You left, I never let you go.Life hasn’t been the same,
I know it never will be again.
I wanted to share your name,
My heart’s door stays open.Even as crazy as it sounds,
I wouldn’t close it if I could.
My love knows no bounds,
Even though I know it should.Still in love with the ghost,
That’s what you’ve become.
I was merely your “almost”
You’re still my number one.People are always asking me,
Why do I no longer smile?
My eyes stare back, blankly,
As I drift back into my denial.If I don’t think about the pain,
Perhaps it will disappear…
But my memory is stained,
And I shed a few more tears.
Elaina has been writing poetry since she was 14. She took advanced literature classes in high school where she learned how to write poems.
Some of her poems were published in a local paper in Vermont where she grew up. In 2013, some of her poems were published in an anthology called Hear Me, See Me: Incarcerated Women Write.
The love of writing poetry has stayed with Elaina throughout her life and she has used it as a coping skill for many years.