In this raw and unflinching collection, Stacy Stephens explores the aftermath of love—the hollow spaces left behind when relationships end and the difficult journey toward healing.
With echoes of Anne Sexton's confessional style, these poems navigate the landscape of heartbreak with startling honesty. From "Incineration of Summers Past" to "The Wintering," Stephens crafts verses that capture both the quiet desperation and fierce determination that follow abandonment.
Readers will find themselves in rain-soaked walks home, late-night café vigils, and solitary drives along moonlit highways where memories haunt like persistent ghosts. Through precise imagery and emotional clarity, Stephens transforms personal pain into universal truth, revealing how we rebuild ourselves in the wake of loss.
"Ditty for the Jilted" isn't merely about endings—it's about reclaiming one's identity, finding strength in solitude, and ultimately, discovering that a heart once broken can still beat with purpose and possibility.
Below you can read a small collection of poetry found within the book. If you enjoy this excerpt, consider PURCHASING MY BOOK!
Incineration of Summers Past
Five summers ago
I won you,
A kind of brittle love
Embryonic as a
Winning raffle ticket.
I pushed your ideas
Between pages of poetry,
All those unread books
That lined the walls
Of my livingroom.
Too many books,
You’d always say.
The same summer
I gathered the words
Of your throw-away stories,
The poems you shunned
Like an angry Whitman,
As if Whitman could
Ever be angered.
Still, I stuffed them
Inside my own mouth,
So that when I spoke
Only you would come out.
We’d spend whole days
Writing inside leather-bound
Journals, sometimes you
Falling asleep while I sneaked
A look at the things
You had to say about me.
And at night we’d drive
Miles outside the city,
Our long conversations spoken
To the harmony of
Cicadas and country frogs.
We’d eat barbecue wings
On the back porch,
Old as the oldest couple
At heart, while slathering ribs,
Negating modern-day philosophy.
We’d hold hands, an
Affectionate thing we did
Without emotional dependency,
And listen to the radio,
Voice of the newsman
Foreshadowing the rain
We would await, although
Sometimes it never came.
I rarely remember those days now,
Precocious children stowed
Inside an old dated calendar
No one keeps time to anymore.
The walls of my bedroom
Now absent your half-completed
Pages of poetry, the wildlife murals,
Shelves-full of Rumi and
The old college-dorm expressionist
Art you found in the
Parking lost dumpster that day.
Friday night has succumbed
To a dreary corner chair,
The lonesome melody of
My steady laptop keys,
A muse whose grip is
Greater than any greed.
Each summer since then
Has been a cerulean,
Teary-eyed homecoming,
A loft-full of whispering eaves,
Each afternoon a recession
Of the one before, time-lapse
Of history paused on repeat,
Days full of sun folded between
Perfectly-woven croissants,
My rare, home-made delicacy,
And dandelions in a clay tea-pot,
Pouring petals full of my wishes.
They swim toward the sun,
Steady, weightless things,
Forever leaving, re-growing,
Steadily receding toward the sun.
After The End
Late evening
Has turned to gloam.
I’ve been sleeping since seven,
The sky is beautiful,
Winter-trees and frozen fields,
The stars twinkling like glass.
February moonlight
Swims across the horizon.
This moment would be beautiful
Were you here to
Warm my hands, so small.
The sky holds the moon
Up like a mirror,
I lift my eyes upwards,
And search my face
For the memory
Of our last kiss.
Shell Shock
Wanting to wash you
From my memory
Like dried beer stains,
I closed the line between us
Like an old storm door
Rusted at the hinge
And it would not open again.
I strung a messy string
Of fairy lights across the
Pristine white walls behind my bed,
Tussled my hair into an unmade nest
And threw my shoes
Into the river like a wood nymph,
The same ones full of
Your shelled beach sand.
I wanted rid of every crumb of you.
I sat in the rain
And spoke to the moon
As if she were another mother
And I refused to cry
come Thanksgiving,
Two hundred minutes of forced smile
Across a table full of
cobbler and string beans,
not once wondering if you
were even thinking of me.
And come spring, I exchanged
My sandals for tights,
Tossed my favorite jeans too,
The ones that always compelled
You to brush against me
In that subtle-man sway.
I pushed flowers and bands
Of silk between my tussled hair
And behind my ears,
Laughing a little at all my secrets
That you never won.
I spent a year of my life
Filling back into my body
Like the women whose curves
You’ll never get to touch.
I bought the black dress,
The one you warned me against,
And a red one made of cashmere too,
Each silky crevice of my skin
Burning the memory of you
Like a smoking gun well-fired,
And I wore them well.
Regret, or Something Like It
Friday night
is just another
random number.
The radio is on,
and I'm wrestling
between light
and disillusionment.
My head is full
of liquor and
unwritten poems.
I'm starved for
intellectual conversation
in this nowhere town
of cowboy nightclubs,
streets slick
of secret hookers
and cracked
cigarette kisses.
I'm dancing alone,
sultry of saxophone;
I don't belong here,
coughing against
the black ash
of early midlife.
I'm wearing
my favorite shoes,
I bought them
when I was twenty-six:
black Stillettos.
The heels are
razor sharp,
they chafe against
my still-beating heart.
The shiny black leather
reminds me
of hotel rooms,
2am coffee drinks,
of concerts on the strip,
and the drowning
strangle of despair.
Suddenly the music stops,
something lacking
a sense of sadness
runs down my spine,
cold as the sheathe
of a steel knife
and I realize
I am weeping now,
face against the window,
mannequin against moonlight,
3am tightening time
across my throat
like a noose,
like the good advice
I never listened to.
Last Words
You said
You loved my poems
So the last time we kissed
I wrote my favorite
Lines with my tongue
Across your lips.
Now every time
You breathe or speak
You’ll still taste me.
And every future set
Of lips you kiss
Will know the flavor
Of my favorite coffee.