December 2025
Now it’s that time of year to look back and reflect, and I can’t help myself from doing the same. I have been writing a lot this year, and I can’t deny how much it has helped me through very difficult times.
In 2025, I achieved my first official publications, and I am beyond happy about it. I don’t know why it took me so long to share my writing with the world, as I’ve been writing poetry for years. But somehow, 2025 felt like the right time, and I am deeply thankful to all the editors who read my submissions and published my work. I am also grateful for the rejections—they taught me a lot as well.
This year, I also finished my first chapbook, which I plan to submit for official publication rather than publishing myself. I’ve sent it to a chapbook competition, which is both exciting and a little frightening. Let’s see where it goes—perhaps my first official chapbook will be published in 2026. That would truly be a dream come true.
There are also a few more single poem publications in the pipeline, and I am so happy to share my work, my heart, and my soul with readers from all over the world. I can’t help but feel that this is just the beginning of my journey.
xx
Vanessa Rose
Lonely at Samhain
Alone, sipping the crimson remnants
of forgotten rites,
collected beneath
the full moon’s final gaze.
I am lonely at Samhain—
the loneliest i have ever been.
Candles flicker in a dark room,
I carve your name in blood-warm wax,
to call myself back into our bed.
Your love is a curse and
I have the bad habit of counting
affection by words.
I can’t help it—
I was born a poet, a witch, a dreamer,
you were born in January:
Silent and cruel, with a cold demeanor.
I am lonely at Samhain.
Tasting the smoke of what
we could not save,
then I realize:
Weeping, I oath to the cursed kings:
“I swear: this will be the last time
that I’ll ever light a flame for absence,
nor will I hunger in silence again.”
“I swear: only the raven will guard me
through the veil of the thinnest night,
where shadows break, where my silence dies,
as I step into the light—whole, unbroken.
So mote it be.
She doesn’t cry anymore
She doesn’t cry anymore.
Not because
she can’t feel-
because
she no longer knows
what to cry for.
Should she cry for the woman
murdered for saying “no,”
for standing her ground?
Hurting a fragile ego?
Should she cry for the sister
shot by her brother,
for choosing freedom
over tradition-
and daring to say so?
Should she cry for herself,
as she remembers
how he hit her:
first with words,
then with fists,
while she wore a fragile smile,
a quiet mask,
keeping up the show?
Should she cry for the women
left alone
to make impossible decisions,
judged instead of held,
doomed by guilt,
some left to die
with no one standing by?
She doesn’t cry anymore.
But maybe one day
her tears will return-
not from pain,
but from the rising chorus
that joins her own voice.
Buried in Blue
At first,
it could not be seen—
fleeting words,
whispers turning into screams,
between sweet promises
and a diamond ring.
Later it bloomed on my chest—
like a buried flower,
my secret,
opening without my consent,
turning from blue to purple,
and then into green.
Even now,
I see it—
when I undress in soft light,
not the mark,
but the memory
of the pulsating blue,
beneath the skin,
that turned fragile and new.
ba-dum
ba—dum
ba…
dum
08/25/25
Honoring the journey that began two years ago with my debut poetry book
Vanessa Rose Poetry 