Poems of profound loneliness and Pain
At Least I Have Them
People say I'm lucky.
They're right.
I have a wife who stands beside me, and children who still call me Dad.
For that, I'll spend every day grateful.
But gratitude doesn't erase loneliness.
There are days I feel like I'm tolerated... not wanted.
Like my name crosses people's minds only when they need something.
Messages go unanswered. Invitations never come. Friendships slowly fade until you're the only one still remembering they existed.
You begin to wonder what is so wrong with you that everyone else seems to find connection so easily.
You smile anyway.
Because your family deserves the best version of you.
They shouldn't have to carry the weight of battles they never started.
So you keep moving.
You laugh at dinner. You tell your kids you're proud of them. You kiss your wife goodnight.
Then, when the house is quiet, you sit alone with the questions that never seem to leave.
"Why do I always feel like I don't belong?"
Maybe the world doesn't see me.
Maybe I'll never be everyone's favorite.
Maybe I'll never fit where I hoped I would.
But every morning, I still have a reason to get out of bed.
Not because the hurt is gone.
Because my wife believes in me.
Because my children know me as Dad.
And on the days when I can't seem to find my own worth...
I'll borrow theirs until I find it again.
~Dale L Hyde
The Invisible Battle
You may not see the illness.
You cannot touch the pain.
You don't hear the voices
that whisper through their brain.
You haven't walked their journey,
or carried what they bear.
You don't know every sleepless night,
or every silent prayer.
You see a single moment,
then write their story whole.
Never seeing all the scars
hidden deep within their soul.
It's easy to point a finger,
to judge what you don't know.
Much harder to choose kindness,
and let compassion show.
Before you speak in judgment,
before you cast your blame,
Remember every hidden fight
is not a game.
You may not see the illness.
You may never feel their pain.
But your words can heal a wounded heart...
or leave a lifelong stain.
~ Dale L Hyde
Ode to the Silent Threshold
In the hush where twilight bleeds to black,
A shadow slips through veins of whispered time,
Not thief, but usher in a velvet cloak,
Who gathers souls like autumn leaves in rhyme.
No scythe that slashes, no cold and grinning skull—
Just quiet hands that loosen earthly ties,
Unraveling the knots of joy and pain,
Releasing breath to where the cosmos sighs.
We fear the door, its latch of unknown ore,
Yet every dawn we practice for its call—
A flower wilts, a candle's flame grows small,
A heartbeat fades, and then... we are no more.
But listen close: in death's vast, starlit hall,
The echoes of our laughter still resound,
The love we wove becomes the thread of all,
A spark returned to fire that knows no bound.
So walk the edge with courage in your chest,
For death is not the end, but life's own guest—
The final verse that crowns the song we sing,
And bids us dance into the endless spring.
~ Dale L Hyde
Static in the Room
By: Dale L Hyde
There’s a chair with my shape in it,
but nobody remembers
who left it there.
The clock ticks like it’s counting
someone else’s life.
Each second slips past
without ever touching me.
I walk through crowds
like a ghost without a story,
faces blur into walls,
voices melt into static.
No one turns their head.
No one says my name.
Mirrors have stopped
recognizing me.
They just hold a tired outline
where a person used to be.
My heart beats
out of habit, not hope.
Like an old engine
left running in an empty lot,
burning fuel
for no destination.
Sometimes I wonder
if I disappeared completely
would the air feel lighter,
would the room even notice
the space I used to fill?
Loneliness isn’t loud.
It doesn’t scream or break things.
It just sits beside you
quietly,
until silence becomes
your only language.
And you start to feel
like a shadow
cast by someone else’s light,
a name never spoken,
a story never told,
a life paused
on a frame
no one bothered to watch.
Still, somewhere deep inside
beneath the dust and echoes,
a small, stubborn spark
refuses to die—
not bright enough
to light the world,
but just enough
to remind me
there was once
a fire here.
And maybe…
that means
there still could be.
The Weight of What If
By: Dale L Hyde
What if I took the other road
the one that bent away from the noise,
away from the familiar porch lights
and the names I knew by heart?
What if I said the words
when they were still warm on my tongue,
before pride froze them solid
and time buried them under years?
What if I stayed one more minute
in the driveway that night,
one more story, one more laugh,
one more hug that could’ve lasted forever?
What if I chased the dream
instead of the paycheck,
followed the fire in my chest
instead of the fear in my bones?
What if I listened closer
when the silence between us
was louder than any argument
we ever threw like stones?
What if I forgave sooner,
held tighter,
spoke softer,
loved harder?
What if the roads I didn’t take
are lined with versions of me
who smile more,
sleep better,
and don’t wake up at 3 a.m.
counting ghosts?
Sometimes I feel them—
those other lives—
brushing past me in crowded rooms,
standing at the edge of old photographs,
whispering through songs on the radio.
A man who stayed.
A man who left.
A man who said “I love you” first.
A man who never said it at all.
All of them wearing my face.
What if the biggest moments
weren’t the loud ones—
not the fights,
not the victories,
not the days the world felt like it was ending—
but the quiet choices
no one noticed
except the heart that made them?
The missed call.
The unopened letter.
The job I almost took.
The goodbye I never finished.
What if life isn’t one straight line
but a thousand broken branches
spreading out behind me,
each one holding a different sky?
And here I stand,
on the path I chose,
carrying the weight
of every door I didn’t open.
Because “what if”
isn’t just a question.
It’s a shadow
that walks beside every memory,
a quiet echo in every victory,
a soft ache in every happy ending.
But maybe—
just maybe—
the life I’m living now
is someone else’s “what if.”
And maybe somewhere
in another version of me,
standing on a different road,
he wonders
how this one turned out.
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