I learned early—
nothing leaves clean.
Not grief.
Not love.
Not the versions of you
you had to bury to survive.
Fallen tears.
Coffee stains.
Sunlight
cracks through the window—
soft,
but unforgiving.
Heaven—
a state of mind.
Hell
lives deep in the heart.
Smoke without fire.
Footsteps that don’t return.
And something in you
still counting the dead.
Yesterday’s faults
become tomorrow’s sorrows.
In the dark corners of my mind
I string stars like fairy lights.
I take thunder in my chest
and turn it to fuel—
to light the fire within.
On my last breath,
I begged the night for a saviour—
but the darkness stayed quiet.
No one came.
The cold laid the truth bare:
in the chaos, in the ruins,
no one is coming
to pull you from your wreckage.
Your salvation is yours.
You save yourself—
or don’t rise.
LOOK FOR
A horizon
that doesn’t fade
when you reach it.
A purpose
that survives the quiet.
A reason
not to burn it all down.
Something that holds
when you lean—
And doesn’t give.
SEARCH FOR
A place
where you don’t perform.
A landing
that doesn’t collapse.
A room inside you
that doesn’t echo.
A truth
that survives the storm—
Not gentle,
but still yours.
YEARN FOR
A home
that doesn’t bruise.
Warmth
that doesn’t leave.
Something
that doesn’t shrink you
or ask you to betray yourself.
Yearn for the self
that stops asking.
The one that stands—
Unflinching,
unchosen by fear.
The one that takes the throne
without apology—
After everything
it bled to keep.
Affogato afternoons, where the day softens and the heart sharpens.
I sip the sweetness melting into the bitter, hoping it teaches me something honest.
I remember I’m allowed to slow down.
Some afternoons are a truce.
Others are a battlefield,
Where I sit across from myself, letting the espresso burn through the fog I thought I was done fighting.
But here – in this melting moment – I let it all blur.
The past I’m trying to outgrow, the future I’m not ready for, the voices that rise like steam and disappear just as fast.
Because in affogato afternoons, I learn the same truth over and over:
Even the bitter can soften. Even the frozen can give. And sometimes, the only way forward is to let yourself melt just enough to begin again.
I thought it would destroy me but I harvested from the loss.
Release, under a crimson red sky.
I craved crisp air for my lungs. I willed my cold dead heart back to life.
Not determined to live under the damage done, determined to rise up from it and rebuild again.
JACQUELINE LENTE POETRY
Find reasons to stay and stay relentless.
Rest is still progress and rebirth is a journey.
You will find your way.
JACQUELINE LENTE POETRY
Two Strangers met
And accidentally fell in as more than lovers
We had different demons but matching wounds,
And sad past tales to tell
Two broken souls
Trying to find some guidance home within each other
Sadly,
The echos of fear, ego, and past trauma were too great
Destruction and self-sabotage got in the way
We became lost
From drowning in your gaze
Skin to skin
To drowning in your absence
Another scar to add to the map
Out in the cold again
At war with my head again
Two Strangers met
And fell in as more than lovers
But Love is war
Life is chaos
And two lovers became two strangers again.
– Two Strangers Part Two
JACQUELINE LENTE POETRY
jacquelinelente.com 