The next day

the next day: is a piercing collection of poems that captures what happens after loss-after the room goes quiet, after the funeral ends, after the world keeps moving. At its heart is a family gathered in a church, torn apart by a sibling's absence, each person grieving in their own unspoken way. Through snapshots of daily life-unfolded laundry, unfinished conversations, missed reminders-this collection gives grief a voice that is raw, questioning, and tender. In one of its most haunting moments, the narrator watches as a stoic grandfather hesitates to enter the funeral, a mother weeps through her makeup, and the speaker silently begs for a second chance. "you shouldn't have left," he says-not as a conclusion, but as a beginning. This is not a story of healing. It's a story of staying. Of waking up the next day-and the next.