gravity

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Greetings, my invisible digital friends. You may want to have some tissues handy this week. 🥺

After reading this week’s poem, if you’re so inclined, feel free to scroll down and check out some of the things happening in my world as I continue these adventures in writing. Now, on to some new poetry….

This week’s poem comes from a night I’ve never truly left. Hard to believe it’ll be forty years ago next February.

One week before his eighteenth birthday, my best friend drowned at a pool party.

We were doing what a lot of teenagers do when they still believe consequence belongs to other people: drinking, smoking weed, being stupid in the ordinary ways youth so often is. I threw him into a pool, never knowing he couldn’t swim. By the time the chaos sorted itself into understanding, he was at the bottom, staring up at me. Dead.

Some memories don’t fade. Even accidental ones.

They deepen their claim. They return with new weather, new gravity, and the same old wound. I’ve learned that guilt is rarely loud in the ways people imagine. Often, it’s quiet, repetitive, patient.

For me? It now waits in water. In the scent of chlorine. In my dreams. It waits in the split second between what we meant and what we did.

I called this poem “gravity” because that word has never belonged to physics alone for me.

It’s weight, yes, and downward force, and the terrible fact that some things can’t be called back once they begin to fall. It is also seriousness in the oldest sense: the moral heft a life can suddenly acquire and never set down again.

Grief has its own gravity. Guilt does too. Both keep pulling the past into the present, dragging old scenes back to the surface just when you think they’ve gone still.

I wrote this poem because there are losses that don’t grow smaller with time; they simply become part of the planet a person carries. Poetry gives me a place to set some of that weight down without pretending it’s vanished.

What memory in your life still holds its own gravity?

As always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts, feelings, and reactions to this week’s poem in the “Leave a Reply” comment section at the very bottom of this page.

-PS Conway ☘️ ☘️ ☘️

☘️ ☘️ ☘️ ☘️ ☘️

gravity

water beckons memory,
it eddies and swirls
thick with stink, chlorine and weed
recalling a heartache too vast to bear,
a current that seeks to drown me – again

i cannot go back to that scene.
i cannot see you staring back at me
still beautiful, from the bottom of the pool,
eyes wide with an awe-full understanding
i may never comprehend.

i cannot tap the tears
that wait to consume me;
once released, weight becomes more
unbearable than w = m × g
more than this too-flooded planet can hold.

and yet water calls
death demands a witness
no matter how untrustworthy,
no matter the innocence that proves me guilty.
gravity grants no absolution.

i never asked if you could swim –
why would i? everyone swims.
you stare at me from the bottom of the pool,
pupils fixed and dilated on something more
and i scream your name – again

☘️ ☘️ ☘️ ☘️ ☘️

☘️ ☘️ ☘️ ☘️ ☘️

This Week’s Links to my published work…

Media News…

*COMING SOON* Just finished my interview with Steve Cuden for his brilliant podcast StoryBeat – what a great conversation! It should air April 21 at Noon. More to come – but do check out Steve’s interviews with other writers and artists – https://www.storybeat.net/

*NEW* My interview with Editor-in-Chief, Gabriela Marie Milton of Literary Revelations Publishing House: https://literaryrevelations.com/2026/01/25/the-portrait-of-a-poet-ps-conway/  🌹☘️

*NEW* My interview with author Tricia Copeland on her podcast Finding the Magic Book is now available to watch: https://youtu.be/NhieYECI-H4  🤯🥂

Latest Publication News 

It has been a productive last few months for me. TEN POEMS published. If you are interested in a copy of any of these, I have embedded the Amazon links below.

  1. My poem mercy will be published in The Ekphrastic Review on May 12. They are an literary “online journal devoted entirely to writing inspired by visual art. Their objective is to promote ekphrastic writing, promote art appreciation, and experience how the two strengthen each other and bring enrichment to every facet of life.”
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  2. My poem the color of staying was published in the Spring’26 edition of PHIL LIT Journal on March 15. This literary journal “promotes writing that engages with philosophical, metaphysical, ethical, & existential themes; without sacrificing beauty, craft, surprise, or risk.” Please be sure to check it out.
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  3. I have two poems published in The Belfast Review, Winter/Spring 2026. Based in the north of Ireland, this gorgeous emerging literary magazine, in addition to poetry, “aims to create a dialogue between the arts, featuring genres not usually included in literary journals such as song lyrics, plays, screenplays, and hybrid forms, to better reflect the lived experience of art, the self, and the city.”

Latest News – Life Sucks…

So far, Life Sucks has received so many ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Editorial Reviews. More to come soon.

I’m anticipating a whole bunch of solid Reader Reviews to begin populating Amazon in the next few weeks, too. The goal is to get to 50 Reader Reviews asap to kick Amazon’s promotion engine into a higher gear.

Speaking of Editorial Reviews, we secured a BIG ONE – BookLife. This is the indie press division of Publishers Weekly and represents a major credibility lift to my published work. Here is a link, in case you’re interested in reading the entire review:

https://booklife.com/project/life-sucks-memories-and-introspections-during-the-great-covid-lockdown-101267

And here are a few other snippets of other editorial reactions so far!

– “Snort-laughs and gasp-worthy wit – PS Conway goes there, and it’s hilarious.”

– “A must-read for anyone stressed, cynical, or just in need of a damn good laugh.”

– “Darkly funny, brutally honest, and weirdly comforting – like therapy, but with colonoscopies.”

☘️ COME BACK EACH WEEK FOR NEW POETRY ☘️ 

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