Bear Sage

08/24/2025

Check out my latest Substack article

https://open.substack.com/pub/bearsage/p/i-believe-in-life-after-death?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=sbrzh

08/02/2025

Peace
ain’t quiet.
It’s the absence
of bu****it.

It’s walking into a room
and knowing
you don’t owe anyone
a softer version of your truth.

It’s eating alone
without swallowing your worth.

It’s saying,
“No,”
and not following it
with a damn explanation.

08/01/2025

Can I Get a Side of Hope with That Venti Chai Latte, Please?

A writer's caffeine-soaked confession

By Bear Sage

-

So I’m standing in line,

debating whether this next poem is too honest

or not honest enough.

-

Wondering if the algorithm wants poetry

or just another trauma-sprinkled essay

served with a side of “resilience.”

-

I order the venti chai.

Oat milk, of course.

Three pumps, not four.

I’m saving room for regret.

-

And then, because I’m running on fumes

and existential dread,

I ask:

-

Can I get a side of hope with that?

-

The barista doesn’t blink.

She’s probably heard worse.

Like, “I’m writing a Substack.”

-

Hope, at this point,

is the draft I’ve opened 19 times

and rewritten 22.

It’s the line I deleted

that keeps whispering,

you were right to kill me,

but still won’t leave me alone.

-

Hope is the moment I click "publish"

thinking maybe this one will land,

maybe this one will find someone

at 2:37 a.m.

holding their own broken thoughts

like a coffee cup with a crack

they keep drinking from anyway.

-

And then maybe they’ll write back.

Or repost it.

Or just feel something that isn't

Buy now

Vote later

Work harder.

-

Hope’s not big anymore.

It’s lowercase.

Italicized.

Unsubscribed from most of its own newsletters.

-

But I keep writing.

I keep brewing.

-

Because some mornings,

when the caffeine hits just right

and the metaphor lands clean,

I believe again.

-

Even if just for a stanza.

-

Even if just until the cup runs out.

07/31/2025

If you have a moment check out my latest article.

Truth is not linear

07/29/2025

I am writing a lot lately, life lessons and poetry inspired by the work that I do both within and with clients #

https://open.substack.com/pub/bearsage/p/i-am-never?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=sbrzh

Thid is about the vastness we carry, and what it means to remember it

07/28/2025

Validate This 🖕
By Bear Sage

My complete self
has never needed you.

Rising beyond the container
you meant to contain.
Perhaps you forgot my origin
my choice.

You were the soul
I planted my seed in.

But soil turns toxic.
Polluted by ego,
left unwatered
by want or time.

I stayed long enough
to split earth,
long enough
to feel my veins tighten
around absence.

You thought I grew
because of you
your light, your weather.

But I grew in spite.
In rot.
In the compost
of your leftovers.
Through the bones
you buried beneath me.

Now I choose transplant
over ache.
There’s nothing left
for you to claim

just a bloom
you can’t touch,
shade you can’t reach,
no sweetness
in the fruit I bear.

I don’t grow
where I’m harvested.
I grow
where I refuse
to be owned.

Validate that.

07/27/2025

❤️

07/19/2025

Stretch Marks of My Heart
for Andrea Gibson

By Bear Sage

I used to think love
fit neatly inside a body
like a poem trimmed to meter,
like a rib cage
built for one breath at a time.

But then came
the child I didn’t birth,
the friend who named their gender
like it was a sunrise,
the lover whose laugh
took up a whole hallway.

One by one,
they arrived.
And my heart
that soft, stubborn muscle
stretched.

Wider than comfort.
Wider than plans.
Wider than what I thought
was mine to hold.

Sometimes the stretch burned.
Sometimes it stung.
Sometimes it asked me
to let go
just to let in.

But still,
it stretched to fit
every truth I said yes to
the ones with sharp edges,
the ones that tangled,
the ones that refused
to shrink just to fit.

And like skin
that pulls to cradle
the weight of becoming,
my heart learned the art
of expansion.

These marks,
these quiet, sacred scars
are not flaws.

They are proof
that I have loved
beyond my original shape.

That I made room
for the wild, the tender,
the not-yet-understood.

That I did not stay
small.

Let no one call it damage.
This is how a life
makes space
for all its miracles.

This is how we become
bigger than fear,
richer than language.
Marked, yes
but only
because we grew.

07/19/2025

Stretch Marks of My Heart
for Andrea Gibson

By Bear Sage

I used to think love
fit neatly inside a body
like a poem trimmed to meter,
like a rib cage
built for one breath at a time.

But then came
the child I didn’t birth,
the friend who named their gender
like it was a sunrise,
the lover whose laugh
took up a whole hallway.

One by one,
they arrived.
And my heart
that soft, stubborn muscle
stretched.

Wider than comfort.
Wider than plans.
Wider than what I thought
was mine to hold.

Sometimes the stretch burned.
Sometimes it stung.
Sometimes it asked me
to let go
just to let in.

But still,
it stretched to fit
every truth I said yes to
the ones with sharp edges,
the ones that tangled,
the ones that refused
to shrink just to fit.

And like skin
that pulls to cradle
the weight of becoming,
my heart learned the art
of expansion.

These marks,
these quiet, sacred scars
are not flaws.

They are proof
that I have loved
beyond my original shape.

That I made room
for the wild, the tender,
the not-yet-understood.

That I did not stay
small.

Let no one call it damage.
This is how a life
makes space
for all its miracles.

This is how we become
bigger than fear,
richer than language.
Marked, yes
but only
because we grew.

07/12/2025