Darius Phelps

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Boy from Hawaiʻi

You learned to survive the way the Pacific breaks—
wave after wave finding its way back to the place
that wounded it until repetition begins to look
like home. From shore, you’d swear the water
was at peace, but I know better. I’ve watched
the tide return to the same broken places with
the patience of punishment, wearing cliffs down
to silence the way grief wears a body into someone
who mistakes endurance for healing. No one asks
the tide why it keeps choosing the same wound.
& there you stand, eyes fixed on the horizon,
believing the shore is looking for you too.

Darius Phelps (he/him) is the author of My God’s Been Silent (Writ Large Press, 2026) and The Holy Ghost Lives In Her Laugh (Kith Books, 2026). A poet before anything else, his work bears witness to grief, faith, and the act of becoming—offering language as a form of liberation and light. Through the lens of poetic inquiry, Dr. Phelps explores how verse can function as pedagogy, healing and survival. Rooted in Black literary traditions and personal testimony, his work has been featured or is forthcoming in  Frozen Sea, wildness, Diode, Tupelo Quarterly, Matter Monthly, Cultural Daily, Een Magazine, School Library Journal, and many more.  He lives in Brooklyn, NY.