Knox County poems by Tt (2026)

30/01/2026

Might get hate on this poem not everyone is gonna agree with me on this but hear me out.
MUST READ THE WHOLE POEM.

A Second Chance Is Not Soft

Prison was never meant to be a grave,
it was meant to be a mirror.
A place where the noise stops
and you’re forced to look at the damage,
the choices,
the pain with your name on it.

Accountability matters.
Walls matter.
Consequences matter.

But cages alone don’t heal what broke a person.

Prison can stop the behavior for a moment,
but it cannot teach a man how to live,
how to love his children,
how to come home without bringing the same storm with him.
It is a temporary fix for a lifelong wound.

We know this
because roughly half walk back through those gates
within three years after being released,
not because they didn’t suffer enough,
but because suffering without hope
just teaches survival, not change.

A second chance is different.
A second chance says
You did wrong, but you are not done.

It says accountability doesn’t end at punishment
it continues in growth,
in therapy,
in work,
in rebuilding what addiction, violence, desperation, and bad decisions tore down.

Second chances save families.
They keep children from learning visitation rooms by heart.
They keep mothers from praying over collect calls.
They turn “my dad is locked up”
into “my dad came back changed.”

A second chance gives someone the space
to become what prison alone never could
a provider,
a protector,
a healed human being.

Justice without mercy recycles pain.
Accountability without opportunity creates repeat offenders.

But when you give someone a real chance to change,
you don’t just lower recidivism
you rewrite bloodlines,
you stop cycles,
you save futures you’ll never see.

Prison can hold a body.
A second chance can change a life forever.

27/01/2026

I Was Still Breathing

Mama
I remember coming home
and dropping like my body had given up on me first.
Shoes still on.
Lights still on.
Life still happening somewhere else
while I checked out completely.

I didn’t fall asleep.
I went under.

And you came in.
Quiet at first.
Holding your breath
like noise might kill me faster.

Your hand on my chest.
Your ear to my mouth.
Counting.
Always counting.

One.
Two.
Please God three.

I remember you shaking me
not hard, not angry
terrified.
Your voice cracking when you said my name,
like you were already standing at my grave
trying to wake me back.

“Wake up.”
“Please wake up.”

You woke me
just to make sure I wasn’t dead.
Do you know how sick that is?
A mother having to wake her child
just to confirm they’re still alive.

I remember you praying over me
while I was slumped and lifeless.
Not prayers you say in church.
Prayers you say when you’re losing.

Your voice shaking.
Your words falling apart.
Begging God
like He was the only one still paying attention.

“Please don’t take them.”
“Please let them breathe.”
“Please just not tonight.”

I heard you.
Through the fog.
Through the numbness.
Through whatever I had poured into myself.

And this is the part
that destroys me

I was so gone
I didn’t care.

You were pleading for my life
and I couldn’t even feel shame yet.
Couldn’t feel fear.
Couldn’t feel love loud enough
to stop.

I let you kneel beside my body
and bargain with God
while I treated survival like an inconvenience.

Mama, I’m sorry
you became my night watch.
Sorry sleep meant danger.
Sorry peace never came
because you had to make sure
I kept breathing.

To my family
I’m sorry you lived like I was already halfway dead.
Sorry you learned how to brace yourselves
instead of hoping.
Sorry addiction taught you
how to love someone
who might not wake up.

I’m sorry my name
was said through tears more than laughter.
Sorry you carried the weight of my choices
like they were your responsibility.

I didn’t just hurt myself.
I traumatized you.
I turned my body into something
you had to monitor.
I turned love into fear
and faith into begging.

I know there were nights
you stood over me
thinking,
If this is it, how do I survive this?

I lived
while you were preparing
to lose me.

That truth
will haunt me forever.

Mama.
Family.
This is my confession with no excuses left
I heard your prayers.
I saw your fear.
I felt your hands checking for life.

And I kept choosing oblivion anyway.

I am so so truly sorry
that loving me meant
watching my chest rise and fall
and thanking God
for something
that should never have been uncertain.

23/01/2026

The 15 Minute Calls That Break Me

There’s a kind of missing
that doesn’t scream at first.
It just settles in your bones
and refuses to leave.

We’re allowed to talk.
That’s the cruel mercy of it.
Fifteen minutes
measuring love in increments,
watching seconds bleed out
while I pretend not to panic.

Your voice still knows my name.
It still sounds like home.
But it comes to me flattened,
filtered through numbers and wires,
through rules that don’t care
how badly I need you near.

I can hear you breathe.
I can hear you laugh.
I can hear the pauses
where touch should live.
And every time I almost forget
I remember
I can’t reach you.

There’s no leaning into you.
No quiet sitting beside each other.
No hands finding hands
without thinking.
Just absence shaped like a person
I love.

Then the warning comes.
Always too soon.
One minute remaining.
As if love can pack itself up neatly.
As if I haven’t been holding everything in
just to sound okay for you.

When the line goes dead
it’s not silence that hurts
it’s the echo.
Your voice still ringing in my head
while the world reminds me
I’m alone again.

I replay those calls
like prayers I don’t know how to finish.
I ration memories.
I stretch fifteen minutes
into entire days.

The hardest part
is knowing you’re still here
still existing in the same time as me,
just locked away from my arms.

And somehow I keep answering.
I keep counting down.
I keep breaking
and picking myself up
between calls.

Because missing you like this
is painful
but not hearing you at all
would destroy me.

21/01/2026

Oh no…

Death comes and sits next to you in a room full of people you look around at everyone but they don’t notice death sitting beside you

Death looks at you and goes on to say it’s time to go now…. Your thoughts start racing oh no what do I do, what do I say, how do I react, do I smile, do I cry, do I get mad, or do just except it
Oh no… WHAT DO I DO WHAT DO I DO you start to scream

Everyone looks at you like your crazy what is wrong with her who is she yelling at they all turn to each other for an explanation but no one responds

Deaths proceeds to look at you once again and repeats its time to go now this time more sternly.

Once again my mind is just racing, my hearts racing I can’t breathe I look over at death and say give me a damn minute I’m really freaking out over her man

Death looks at you he starts yelling I’m not ur man, ur bro, ur bruh, ur cuh or you friend I am death damn it I said it’s your time now how are you gonna respond it’s quite simple.

I look death in the eyes I’m actually quite stunned idk what to say but I know I gotta say something before it’s to late i hesitate for a minute and i say in a very low voice i wish you came when i was looking for you but im living now can i please just get one more chance

Death starts screaming at you OH MY YOU STUPID IDIOT IT WASNT A CHOICE THERES NO WAY AROUND IT TODAY YOU WILL LEAVE THIS WORLD I DIDNT ASK FOR YOU TO PLEAD FOR ANOTHER CHANCE I ASKED A DAMN QUESTION

And at that I looked at death one more time and I was gone not gone on a long vacation but gone forever.

21/01/2026

HOPEFULL an 8 letter word that dosent mean to everyone else what it means to me….

I was hopeful
when the world was coming apart at the seams.

Not because I was untouched
Or that i didnt wanna open my eyes
but because I refused to let despair
have the last word.

I wore hope like armor in public,
smiled like faith was effortless,
spoke in “it’ll be okays”
so often they sounded natural.
People mistook my hope
for certainty.

They never saw the nights.

Alone, I would collapse into the dark,
hands shaking, breath breaking,
crying so hard my prayers had no grammar.
I begged God for mercy
not riches, not miracles
just please let this go right,
please don’t let this be the end,
please don’t let hope make a fool of me.

I questioned nothing when others were watching.
I carried belief like a torch,
even while it burned my palms.

Because someone had to be strong.
Because someone had to say
“don’t give up”
and mean it enough
for everyone else to borrow it.

So I swallowed my fear,
pressed my tears into pillows,
and stepped back into the world
with light in my eyes
not because I felt it,
but because I knew
someone else needed to see it.

My hope was never denial.
It was sacrifice.
It was choosing to stand
so others wouldn’t fall.

And if God heard me
through the sobs and silence,
I hope He knows this—
I never doubted Him in daylight,
but at night I trusted Him
with every broken piece of me.

I stayed hopeful
so no one else would give up.

21/01/2026

A Prayer I Prayed Too Late but You Still Heard

Jesus,
I didn’t meet You in a church.
I met You when my mouth tasted like regret
and my blood was thick with poison
I called survival.

I was drunk on forgetting my own name,
high enough to believe I wasn’t afraid—
but I was terrified.
Terrified of being alone with my thoughts,
terrified of feeling,
terrified that if I got sober
I’d have to face everything
I buried alive.

You spoke to me that night.
Not in thunder.
Not in miracles.
Just truth
quiet enough that I could ignore it.

And I did.

I turned my face away
and chased the numb again.
Still You stayed.
You guarded a heart
that wasn’t guarding itself.
You kept me breathing
when I didn’t care
if I stopped.

Thank You
for surviving me
when I wouldn’t survive myself.

The next day I chose the same destruction.
Same lie.
Same escape route.
But death slipped something extra in my cup.

It was laced.

And Jesus
I thought You were done with me.

My body turned foreign.
My mind cracked open.
Fear crawled into places
I didn’t know existed.
Days passed like punishment.
Sleep became a threat.
Every heartbeat felt like a countdown.

I begged then.
Not pretty prayers.
Not faithful words.
Just please
and don’t let this be it
and I’m not ready to disappear.

I finally understood
this wasn’t a bad high.
This was a crossroads.

Either I grabbed Your hand
or I left this world
without saying goodbye
to the people who loved me
more than I loved myself.

So I reached.
With dirty hands.
With doubt still clinging to my skin.
With a faith that barely breathed.

And You took me anyway.

You didn’t say
“I told you so.”
You didn’t ask
why it took me so long.

You just held on
while I shook.

Jesus,
thank You for not letting my worst night
be my last one.
Thank You for choosing my life
when I was gambling with it.

I am still learning.
Still healing.
Still tempted.
But I know this now

You met me in the dark
and refused to let me die there.

Amen to that

21/01/2026

A SECOND CHANCE….

It was one moment.
Not a lifetime of evil—
just one fracture in an otherwise beating heart.

One wrong decision,
born out of fear,
pressure,
survival mode kicking in before wisdom could speak.

They don’t have a record of wreckage behind them,
no trail of ruined lives,
no history of choosing wrong just to choose it.
Just this.
Just now.

And suddenly the world wants to define them
by the worst sixty seconds they ever lived.

But where is the grace for first mistakes?
Where is the pause between who they were
and who they could still become?

This is someone who learned late,
but learned fast.
Someone whose remorse is loud
even when their mouth is silent.

They don’t need a free pass
they need a chance to prove
that this was not their character,
only their crisis.

Because everyone who walks upright today
has a version of themselves
they are grateful the world never sentenced.

Let this be correction,
not cancellation.
A warning,
not a burial.

Give them one second chance
not to erase the mistake,
but to outgrow it.

Because the measure of justice
is not how hard it strikes the first time,
but whether it leaves room

for a better ending.

21/01/2026

I’m young woman growing up in a harsh cruel world where the only true love and peace you will find in Jesus himself and your relationship with him this page is gonna be poems some about personal life battles and I have fought and some just deep poems to touch the hearts of many

Knox County poems by Tt

30/01/2026

27/01/2026

23/01/2026

21/01/2026

21/01/2026

21/01/2026

21/01/2026

21/01/2026

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