by Valerie Denay Staton
I never met you before and yet I found you in the spaces I did not know were void. The rooms inside me were unlit. Untouched. As quiet as forgotten prayers.
You did not knock, nor did you speak. You simply arrived – and everything I’d learned to live without took shape again. Manifested before my eyes.
You filled what I had mistaken for peace. You stirred feelings layed to rest long ago. I never met you before, and yet, my hands already know how to hold you.
***Published October 2025
Poetic Reflections 