Shay Knauer Poetry

05/02/2026

The clock-face is a liar, ticking in circles
While time for me is a jagged, frozen line.
It starts as a hum in the marrow—
A low, electric growl that remembers my name
Before I even have the strength to claim it.
The Physical Siege
My body is no longer a temple; it is a cage
Forged from rusted iron and shortened breath.
Every joint is a hinge that refuses to swing,
A grinding of stone on stone,
Where gravity isn’t a law, but a physical weight
Pressing my spine into the dirt.
I move like a ghost through a thicket of thorns,
Each step a negotiation,
Each breath a debt I can’t afford to pay.
The Mental Fog
The mind follows where the nerves lead—
Into the gray, into the damp, into the dark.
The pain is a static noise that drowns out the music,
A thief that steals the punchline of every joke
And the color from every sunset.
I am a passenger in my own skull,
Watching the world through a dirty window,
Too exhausted to wipe away the grime.
The Chemical Truce
Then comes the ritual of the small, white god.
A swallow of water, a prayer to the plastic bottle.
For an hour, the wolves stop howling;
The fire retreats to a dull, glowing ember.
I breathe. I think I might be human again.
But the truce is a thin, translucent veil.
The pill doesn’t kill the monster;
It only feeds it enough to keep it quiet
Until it wakes up hungrier than before.
The Endless Cycle
• The Night: It finds me in the 3:00 AM silence. A sharp, cold needle under the ribs, dragging me back from the mercy of sleep. The bed is a rack, and the darkness is a witness.
• The Day: I emerge as a hollow thing, a battery drained to the salt. The sun is too loud, the air is too heavy, and the energy required to say "I'm fine" is the last coin I have to spend.
The pain is a shadow that has finally grown
Taller than the person casting it.
It does not ask for permission.
It simply stays,
Reminding me that I am alive
Only by the way I hurt.

02/26/2026

Little Black Dress
I searched for days to find the right shade of grief,
A fabric to hold what was beyond belief.
Not for glamour, nor the grace of the light,
But a shroud for a mother on her darkest of nights.
It was long, with patterns that traced near the floor
The last "perfect" thing I would choose anymore.
In the glass of the mirror, I anchored my gaze,
Fighting the salt and the stinging red haze.
I pulled on the sleeves, I straightened the hem,
Preparing to say my final "amen."
But the silk felt like lead, and the air felt like glass,
Waiting for the moments I prayed wouldn't pass.
The church was a blur of a hundred soft sighs,
But I only had sight for your closed, quiet eyes.
I walked to the front, where the world went cold,
To kiss the small hand I no longer could hold.
The skin was like marble, so still and so pale,
While my heart hammered hard 'neath a thin, black veil.
They came in a line, a grey, ghostly tide,
With hands to be shaken and nowhere to hide.
They spoke of your honor, they sang of your grace,
But the only true thing was the peace on your face.
I didn't hear music, I didn't hear prose,
Just the deafening silence that only love knows.
I sat in the pew, a statue of stone,
In a room full of people, yet utterly alone.
I was shaking so hard I could find no relief,
So I traced the designs on my dress in my grief.
Round and round, let the embroidery spin,
Trying to keep all the screaming within.
But then came the wood, and the click of the latch,
A finality no amount of breathing could match.
When the lid hid your face, the silence gave way,
And I shattered the air of that terrible day.
The sound wasn't human; it wasn't a cry—
It was the part of me leaving that refused to say goodbye.
Now it hangs in the dark, in the back of the hall,
A ghost in the closet, leaning against the wall.
I cannot yet touch it, the thread is too raw,
Marked by the sorrow and the beauty I saw.
I can’t let it go, though it’s heavy with pain,
I only pray I never have to wear it again.

02/26/2026

The Tide and the Timber
You arrive like the seam where the night meets the sea,
A blurring of borders, a quiet decree.
No thunderous knocking, no prideful parade,
Just the scent of the salt and the depth of the shade.
A thief in the hallway of memories kept,
Stealing the silence while the sentinel slept.
I hold you at bay with a stiff, wooden palm,
A distance designed to keep the air calm.
But you are a creature of soft, shifting light,
A wolf in the wool, tucked away from the sight.
You wiggle through fractures, you squirm through the seams,
To haunt the periphery of my waking dreams.
The bricks that I stacked—grey, heavy, and cold—
Are losing the battle to the stories we told.
With every "I’m sorry" that feels like a snare,
You chip at the mortar until it is bare.
It’s harder to stand when the foundation is thin,
When the ones who first broke me are begging back in.
Like the dark on the water, you linger and bloom,
Filling the corners of every room.
I am waiting for sunrise to show me your teeth,
Or the grace of the person I hope is beneath.
But the wall is collapsing, the masonry sighs,
As I let the old ghosts look me straight in the eyes.

01/10/2026

The Unbreakable Knot
You are the only thing that ever made sense
in a world that often feels like chaos.
Before you, I was drifting, a boat without an anchor,
but you walked in and quieted the storm.
You took the heavy emptiness I carried
and replaced it with a love so solid,
it became the very ground I walk on.
Look at us now, after all this time.
The years have not worn us down; they have only fused us closer.
I am woven into your silence and your song,
braided into your strength and your flaws.
There is no longer a clear line where I end and you begin.
I am tangled up in you,
completely, hopelessly, wonderfully lost in you.
Let the world try to pull us apart—it will only fail.
Let the seasons change and the time roll on;
my heart is fixed on you like the North Star.
We are not two separate threads anymore;
we are the tapestry itself.
Stronger together than we ever were alone,
impervious to the wind and the rain.
I loved you then, when we started,
but I love you fiercely now.
With every beat of my chest, with every breath I take,
I choose you.
Nothing can untie this knot.
You are my world.

01/01/2026

The Ash and The Sunrise
They are toasting to vanity tonight,
To smaller waistlines and fuller banks,
Drafting lists of heavy things to fix,
To climb the ladders and rise through ranks.
They speak of "new versions" and polished glass,
Of turning pages they haven't yet read,
But I am just standing here, gripping the glass,
Amazed by the miracle that I am not dead.
They don't understand the weight of the air,
When a bedroom is silent and the hallway is still.
They measure their years in the goals they achieved;
I measure mine in the sheer force of will.
I carried the grief like a stone in my throat,
I walked through the fire of an empty chair,
So keep your resolutions, your hollow demands,
My victory is simply that I am still here.
When you bury a piece of your own living heart,
The calendar changes, the definitions shift.
You stop looking forward to decades to come,
And learn that a Tuesday is a violent gift.
I don't want the moon or the stars or the wealth,
I just want the coffee, the light on the floor,
The sound of the rain, the intake of breath,
The things that my child can’t touch anymore.
So watch me strike the match on the heel of this year,
Watch 2025 curl up in the smoke.
I am burning the days where I just treaded water,
I am burning the fear that nearly made me choke.
Let it blaze in the dark, let the "survival" turn ash,
Let the grey and the grit finally expire.
I have paid for this wisdom with the dearest of costs,
So I’m setting the past on a funeral pyre.
And here comes the dawn of the twenty-sixth year,
Not asking for perfect, not asking for easy,
But asking for more than just holding the line,
For a heart that is open, and lungs that breathe freely.
I will live for the joy of the sun on my face,
I will live for the hope that the morning can give,
I will take nothing for granted, not one single second,
Because I am the one who is left here to live.

12/24/2025

The Masonry of Spite
You baptized me in failure, a prophecy of dust,
Spitting your venom with a look of disgust.
I remember the moisture, the shock on my skin,
As you screamed I was hollow, totally empty within.
Your eyes were two coals, burning bloodshot and red,
Boring holes in my heart until I wished I was dead.
You swore I would crumble, that I’d never rise,
That my worth was reflected in your hateful eyes.
But look at the skyline I etched in the air,
Built from the bricks of my desperate prayer.
This isn’t a hovel; it’s a castle of stone,
Constructed on nights when I shivered alone.
I took every insult, every curse that you spoke,
And mixed them with mortar until the spell broke.
I stand on the turret, the ruler of all,
Watching the shadow of your memory fall.
Listen closely—do you hear what is new?
That rhythmic vibration is the absence of you.
It’s the laughter of children who never will know
The terror of walking on eggshells below.
There is love brewing here, thick, wild, and sweet,
Rising off of their skin like a summer day’s heat.
I became every impossible, beautiful thing
You swore that my spirit could never once bring.
And don’t get it twisted, don’t misunderstand,
I didn't build this to impress your command.
My trophies aren't polished to dazzle your view,
I stopped living life to prove anything to you.
I did this for peace. I did this for breath.
I did this to walk through the valley of death.
But still...
I hope that my joy is a violent slap,
That my safety snaps shut like a steel-jawed trap.
I hope my success is a hand across your face,
Leaving a mark that you cannot erase.
Feel the burn on your cheek, feel the heat, feel the sting,
Of the queen you created, who conquered you!

12/06/2025

The Heavy Lid
We didn’t force you into a stranger’s suit.
We didn’t tie a knot at your throat or stiffen your collar;
that wasn’t you, and I couldn't bear a lie on your last day.
So you wore what you loved, the soft fabric of a Tuesday,
comfortable and real.
I stared at you, tracing the map of a face I memorized since the day I first saw it.
It was your nose, your chin, the sweep of your hair—
it looked exactly like you,
and yet, it was a terrifying sculpture of the boy I knew.
The vessel was perfect, but the captain had already sailed.
The church was a dull roar, a television playing in another room.
I saw mouths moving, shapes forming words like
"peace" and "sorry" and "loss,"
but the syllables just bounced off my skin.
The songs rose up to the rafters,
melodies that usually made me cry,
but I was dry, stuck in a fog, floating somewhere above the pews.
I was present in body only;
my spirit was still trying to find where yours went.
Then, the movement caught my eye—
the heavy, final motion of the lid coming down.
That was the moment the fog cleared, replaced by a lightning strike.
As the gap narrowed, stealing the last sliver of your face,
my heart didn't just break;
it dropped through the floorboards, heavy as an anchor.
My knees, remembering their weakness from the hospital,
folded beneath me.
I crumbled as they sealed you away,
a physical collapse under the weight of a forever goodbye.
The months that followed were a smudge of gray.
Seasons changed outside the window,
but inside me, it was always that same spring day yet somehow as cold as winter.
They told me time would be a medic,
that the sharp edges would dull,
but the pain hasn’t eased—it has just become a part of my posture.
I carry it like a second spine.
But through the blur, one thing is sharp and blindingly bright:
the sheer beauty of you.
The pain is only this deep because the love was that high.
You were a sun that set too soon,
but you left your warmth on everything you touched.
We do not speak of you in the past tense alone;
we keep you in the present, in the stories we tell,
in the laughter we force until it becomes real again.
You are loved beyond the boundaries of breath,
and we will carry you, alive and beautiful,
until we are the ones being carried home.

12/06/2025

The Static After the War
The loudest sound in the world
was not the scream, not yet—
it was the moment the choir of machines decided to quit.
That sudden, electronic betrayal when the alarms cut out,
leaving a vacuum where hope used to beep,
replacing the rhythm of your heart
with the hum of a devastating silence.
I looked down at the linoleum,
a messy mosaic of our failure.
The floor was littered with the debris of the fight—
discarded silver instruments,
gauze blooms soaked in dark crimson,
life-saving tools scattered like toys
that nobody wanted to play with anymore.
The room turned to ice.
Not just the air, but the very atoms of the walls,
trapping the cold inside with us.
I reached for you—
I took your hand,
expecting the familiar grip, the warmth of your pulse,
but I held only weight.
I kissed your forehead,
and the chill against my lips
burned worse than any fever.
My body rejected the truth before my mind could process it.
My knees began to tremble,
a violent vibration rattling my bones
until they simply gave up,
and I hit the tiles.
I retched, heaving bile and sorrow onto the floor,
emptying myself because there was no room left inside me
for anything but this void.
And then, the sound returned.
Not the machines.
But a tear in my own throat,
a scream so loud it felt like swallowing fire,
shattering the silence of the walls,
broken only by our cries and the impossible weight of "goodbye."
The silence is permanent now.
We will never hear the music of your laugh again.
We will never hear your voice fill the hallway.
I will never again stand on my tiptoes,
looking up to hug your neck,
feeling small and safe while you tower over me,
my giant, my boy, my heart.
Now, we are just counting.
We miss you in the seconds between breaths.
We miss you in the heavy minutes that drag.
We miss you in the hollow hours and the endless days.
We are trapped in the ice-cold room,
waiting for a warmth that went away with you.

12/03/2025

12/03/2025

Where the Soul Rusts

This is not a rainy day.
Rain implies movement, a cycle, a washing clean.
This is a drought in the marrow.
A stillness so absolute it has weight,
Pressing the air from my lungs until breathing
becomes an act of grand, pathetic theft.
They talk of grief as a tide,
Something that comes in and must eventually go out.
They lie.
It is a sudden, violent geology.
A fault line snapping open beneath the kitchen floor,
Swallowing the table set for two,
Leaving me stranded on the edge of a newly formed canyon,
Staring down into a dark so total it has teeth.
I am learning the architecture of absence.
How the silence in the hallway
Has developed a physical density,
A gelatinous thickness I must push through just to reach the door.
How the photons of light striking the window pane
Seem tired, arriving only out of habit,
Illuminating dust motes that hang, paralyzed,
In a dead orbit around the vacuum of where you used to be.
Hope is a language I used to speak fluently,
But now the vowels feel jagged in my throat,
Like swallowing broken glass to appease a cruel god.
My future has collapsed into a single, infinite point:
The next ten seconds. And then the ten after that.
A treadmill of gray seconds, grinding down the bone.
This is the raw meat of existence, stripped of the rind.
Where the soul, exposed to the elements,
Doesn't scream—it rusts.
It corrodes in this salt air of memory.
I am becoming a ruin in real-time,
A monument to a civilization of one that has fallen,
Watching the ivy of despair
Slowly, beautifully, strangle the last sturdy stone.