You can’t stay here
You may stay here, should you choose
You are wanted here, by many, without a doubt
But it’s written all over every cell of your body
That you can not stay here
That you will not stay here

Breathing This Way

Published by Lee Under the Cedar Trees on July 29, 2025

I want to be wrong more than right.
I hope I’m wrong about so many things.

I inhale many possible outcomes every minute,
so many that I can’t even taste them anymore,
and exhale apologies with and for every breath.

What are my lungs doing?
Why do they feel this way, hating me?
Why must they tell the world, over and over,
“I’m so sorry I’m here”?

July 29, 2025
~ 4 a.m.

Gentle Birdsong and Bones Unbroken — For Those I’ve Never Met Who Fear the Ones Who Love

Published by Lee Under the Cedar Trees on July 25, 2025

I’m sure you’ll never read this
This lesson could never come from me
But I do hope you learn it
Somewhere, from someone

I know it may be so, so very hard
For many of us to believe this
(Trust me, I do)
But please do consider the possibility
That you can make the space you need
To hold and keep everything they have to offer you

To Consume Forever, To Give Forever

Published by Lee Under the Cedar Trees on July 23, 2025

If I wanted to live forever
It must be just so I can read all the poems yet to be written
And all the past greats that I’ve missed so far
And so that I may write
And write
And write, write,
Write until the universe ends with a whimper,
Both it and myself becoming silent, together,
As one

July 21 – 23, 2025

Ending Determined

Published by Lee Under the Cedar Trees on July 22, 2025

Followed up by: Denial Determined

Every heartbeat, dishonest;
Every breath, wasteful;
Every action, fraudulent.

This perseverance, cowardice;
An ending determined, righteous.

July 22, 2025
~ 11:20 p.m.

I don’t want to exist like this.

Published by Lee Under the Cedar Trees on July 21, 2025

I don’t want to exist
like this;
but I still know,
and can’t forget.