The Ones Who Linger

A Poem About How Brief Connections Can Restore Trust and Bring Us Back to Ourselves

Wendi Kehn/Hellbloom Haven (Also posted to Substack & Medium)

Jan 04, 2026

The Ones Who Linger

by Wendi Kehn

There are people you meet along the way
who choose to linger, they choose to stay.
They slow the world, they take their time,
listening deep, reading between the lines.

They ask the questions others miss,
sit in silence, they don’t resist.
They don’t rush past the fragile parts,
they see the cracks and call them art.

They don’t arrive to save the day,
or promise things will be okay.
They simply stand, both calm and kind,
and leave a little light behind.

You walk away a touch more whole,
like breath returned into your soul.
As if your heart remembers then
how good it feels to hope again.

Maybe they are not meant to forever stay,
some souls just pass us along the way.
But they remind us, soft, alive,
that life is still a gift to try.

Behind the Poem

When you’ve been hurt, deeply, repeatedly, it makes sense to close your heart.
Betrayal teaches us to guard what’s tender, to keep the doors shut, to mistake distance for safety. After a while, protecting yourself can feel like the only way to survive.

But then there are these people.

They don’t force their way in, or demand trust.
They simply arrive, sometimes briefly, and offer something different. A steadiness, a kindness, and a way of being that doesn’t ask you to armor up or explain yourself.

They remind you what it feels like to exhale.

These people don’t erase what’s happened to you. They don’t undo the hurt or make you reckless with your heart. What they offer is quieter than that: a glimpse. A small opening. A reminder that keeping your heart open doesn’t have to mean leaving it unprotected.

Sometimes they stay and sometimes they pass through for just a moment.
But even then, they leave behind proof that connection can still be safe, that light still finds its way in, that your heart wasn’t wrong for wanting closeness in the first place.

This poem is for those moments, for the people who cross our path and gently show us what openness could look like again, if and when we’re ready.

And maybe it’s also a reminder: you don’t have to force your heart open.
You just have to notice when it starts to open on its own.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Wendi Kehn

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