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Our poet writes: Stephen Palencar was born and raised in Maryland, in a suburb of Baltimore. He experienced heavy trauma through his developmental years and uses writing as an outlet rather than an outlook. He calls his struggles a “beautiful burden.” He pulls on his background in philosophy, psychology, and transcendentalism as inspiration for his writing. He aspires to give more back to these fields than he has taken. It is a self-proclaimed improbable goal, but those make the greatest stories. He now studies at Endicott College.

Thoughts

Stephen Palencar

The pitter patter of the multitudes of my children

jump on their bed above me as I try to sleep

The squeaking and thumping

upon the hardwood floors of my mind

The floors are scratched

Scratched from the inside of the hospital

The pain of birth, seeing life in my child’s eyes

The beauty of life, seeing the life leave my wife’s eyes

My wife dying in childbirth

My child living in stillbirth

Where I hold back my tears

To get a clearer view of who I died for

On the hardwood floors

Above where I sleep

In my mind

So I can do it all again

The childbirth, to the lettering and patterning, to the death of my wife

Whose hand I clutch, holding my own hand. In the hospital

On Top of the hardwood floors, above with I sleep

Within my mind

My thoughts

Thoughts

— Stephen Palencar

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