JANUARY 23, 2026 POETRY Before Love Learned Its Name Before love had a face it was temperature. A quiet warmth deciding atoms should stay together. It didn’t ask permission. It didn’t explain itself. It leaned — and the universe leaned back. We learned fear faster than love. Fear came with instructions. Love came naked. So we built words around it like fences around wind, and then wondered why it kept escaping. We tried to own it. Put it on trial. Measure it in promises, in rings, in days that didn’t last. But love never signed the contract. It just showed up as breath in another chest, as the unbearable urge to protect what can break. Love is what your body remembers before your mind interrupts. It lives in the pause between two heartbeats, in the moment your eyes close and something inside you says: yes … this. You don’t find love. You stop resisting it. You don’t give love. You allow it to pass through you like light through glass that forgets it’s solid. One day humanity will stop asking what love is for, stop demanding proof, stop mistaking intensity for truth. And then — quietly — without ceremonies or conclusions, everything we broke will remember how to return. Because love was never the lesson. Love was the origin. Love was the path. Love is the ending that keeps beginning. LA SHAWN COURTWRIGHT Groundcover writer Seems like I had looked to see The end of a year The end of former things Don't git it twisted at all My friends, family and all Does not postpone life Yet for some New, better beginnings Fresh starts simply A fart, a farce both escaped me Yet here I am A fresh start The end of old former things May this year offer, as well as grant me, and all a new and refreshed journey!!! PEDRO CAMPOS Groundcover vendor No. 652 Another Part of Me , Another Start Too! GROUNDCOVER NEWS 15 Free the chain gang #Flint MARQUETTA "Q" CLEMENTS Groundcover contributor This shit ain't normal Free Palestine It's hard to stay sane Got me feeling outta place Been hurt plenty times Just tryna numb the pain The drugs feel safeeeeee The drugs feel safe Eyes behind my head They tryna get me out the way My talent seems to rise The love tend to fade F* that fake shii I'll empty out this chamber I don't care for cops Holocaust detain us Free Palestine Trail of tears it get dangerous America we fallen Airborne rangers A song from a vet Green berets let em shoot Duck, duck, goose x2 I wear that Army Green Let's show em who we is We the biggest bullies Bully bullies let it r.i.p. Biggest gang get big Faith KIMANI HAMILTON Groundcover vendor No. 518 Will my faith get Me strength get me Far will my faith leave Me breathless. Will My faith leave me hopeless Or will my faith get Me further. In life Or will my faith leave Me to riches. All I know is my faith Keeps me focused. Choices KIMANI HAMILTON Why do I make the Choices I make Is it to please others Are my choices pleasing To my father in heaven Are my choices pleasing To my family Are my choices favorable To myself will my choices impact my future Will my choices leave Me hopeless all I know Is my choices won't get Me far
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