Still Here

STILL HERE: Poems from a Life in Progress is a collection of poetry written across the changing seasons of one life.

Some of these poems began in youth, when the world felt larger, stranger, and full of unanswered questions. Others came years later, shaped by love, loss, family, loneliness, depression, healing, memory, and the hard-earned perspective that only time can give.

Together, they trace a life still in motion.

Across forests, shorelines, mountains, stars, darkness, and light, Brandon Bedell explores what it means to search for yourself, lose pieces along the way, carry what remains, and eventually learn that survival is not the same thing as living.

Within these pages are poems about grief and betrayal, love so powerful it hurts, the weight of depression, the silence of solitude, the absurdity of taking the wrong shortcut, the comfort of gratitude, and the wisdom found only after walking a road long enough to look back.

Some poems are deeply personal. Others belong to imagined worlds, including the Prophecy poems that form part of a fantasy project first conceived in Brandon's youth and still waiting to be fully told. Together, the collection moves between reflection, storytelling, humor, nature, memory, and the emotions that can overwhelm the soul.

Written across different periods of Brandon's life, these poems also offer a companion to the memoir projects still to come. A memoir may tell readers what happened. These poems may offer something closer to what those moments felt like.

This is not a collection about having everything figured out.

It is about continuing anyway.

About learning what to carry, what to release, and what is worth holding onto.

About looking back without becoming trapped there.

About finding reasons to see tomorrow.

The road continues.
And so do I.
I am still here.