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Dark forest path with golden light

Twelve stairs between the life they risked everything for
and the woman she needed to become.

The Poet's Song Love, Power and the Gravity of a Genius

Ignition

Season One

The cost of impossible love  ·  A memoir series by Deborah Parker

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The Story

Eight Seasons. One Song.
Everything In Between.

"This is the part of the movie where the audience
is screaming at her to turn around.
I knew it was dangerous. I went anyway because I had to know."

On a muggy June Florida night, she drove into the woods seeking out a stranger. A stranger with a song she could not forget, as if he was pulling her into his orbit. In an instant, they became inseparable as they orbited each other — leaving everything and everyone behind. What followed were years of love, chaos, and the gravity that held them together through it all — told across eight seasons, from deep in the Florida woods to the Blue Ridge Mountains.

This is the story of the cost of impossible love.

Hands on piano keys with synesthesia colors

Season 1

Ignition

Two minutes and forty-eight seconds. That's all it took.

Magical sanctuary carved from trees with string lights

Season 2

Hobbit House

They built a house of love, laughter and music — complete with their own Hobbit House. It was magical until it wasn't. Crumbling under the lies holding them together.

Hurricane Irma approaching Florida coast

Season 3

Tribe

Living on sacred tribal land behind a flea market, they soon involve themselves with the market ecosystem — until a Category 5 hurricane threatens to destroy everything.

Sandcastle on St Pete Beach at sunset

Season 4

Fantastic Sandcastles

Squatting in paradise with sandcastle dreams. The season that healed them — until it became a nightmare.

Chaotic Florida street at night with pawn shop

Season 5

Freakshow

Stolen bikes, arms dealers, and a nightly parade of chaos — but nobody dared steal from them. Except once.

Southern estate with red cowboy boots and barn

Season 6

Entourage

Salvation arrived wearing red cowboy boots in a camouflage limousine. It brought them home to a kind of captivity they were unprepared for.

Blue Ridge mountain road in fog at dawn

Season 7

Cut and Run

Twelve stairs. One impossible decision. She ran, but could she stay away?

Woman dissolving into gold fragments against dark sky

Season 8

Gravity

Living in the orbit she cannot escape.

Piano keys in golden light

Read

From the Pages

Metaphor

One more flight and I would be gone.

The man I fell for all those years ago was nowhere around.

Now's the time, Deborah. No turning back.

The ring he'd made me, now pulled from my finger, mocked me from the nightstand.

Don't go.

The glass door to the balcony, with my half-finished turtle painting begging for completion.

Don't go.

And the keyboard, untouched for so long — silencing the colors that once sprang from his hands into my soul.

Still needing me to lead us back.

Stay.

Together, we braced for storms.
He warned about the aftermath.

I feared it now.

Storms taught us we could endure anything together.

How was I going to endure without him?

He couldn't stand to see me afraid.

I was.

I couldn't stand to witness his pain.

How could I do this to us?

When the skies cleared, we always found refuge in each other.

What had become of him — that bold, irreverent genius?

What happened to the poet?

And what had become of me, who worshipped him?

Twelve stairs.

Six.

Three more.

And I was gone.

From Episode 1

Ignition

Ignition took only 2 minutes and 48 seconds.

· · ·

I was looking for something I couldn't explain. Meaning. Depth. Someone who knew exactly how to do what I could not. Color.

· · ·

Giving me the wrong address should have been my first clue to go home.

Turn around! My brain screamed. I kept driving.

· · ·

It was the kind of look that did not ask for permission, and he held it daring me to look away.

· · ·

How does one look at feet in socks and come undone? I did.

· · ·

For a fraction of a second his eyes glared at me — angry and black. I felt the warning. I knew I just fucked it up.

· · ·

Not going meant not knowing. And I had to know.

From Season One — Ignition
Follow the story →

The Writing

Published Work

Essay

How Toxic Relationships Turn Empaths into Narcissists

"I am a rabid narcissist. Keep reading. I will prove it." — A brutally honest exploration of how love, fear, and pain can transform even the most empathetic person into the thing they fear most.

29,700 reads Elephant Journal · Aug 2020
Essay · Substack

Get Over It Already

"Here is what nobody tells you about leaving: when you are the one who walks away, you are not allowed to grieve." — On the ten-year anniversary of the night it all began.

New The Poet's Song · June 2026
Poetry

I Missed You Today

I missed you today. And that's nothing new. I missed you yesterday And will tomorrow too. I still reach for my phone When I have news Even knowing I can't send it to you. I close my eyes to see your smile There's a special place it's lived for a while. I traveled far up the mountain to find some peace Thinking memories of us would simply release But my heart brought you here It didn't care to escape So I keep your memory everywhere. I missed you today. Because now it's the fire. So I let it burn Because the flames you gave me Still inspire. They say let you go But I never will You made me shine I'm shining still. I miss you today. And that's fine with me. Keeping you close Has set me free. The gifts you gave I keep them safe Follow me into the dark You light the way.

Coming Soon

The Podcast

The full story, read aloud by the author. Chapter by chapter. Subscribe to be the first to hear it.

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Coming Soon

Cover Art Competition

The cover of Season One should come from someone who feels this story. Your interpretation could become the face of The Poet's Song.

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Deborah Parker — author portrait

About the Author

Deborah Parker

Deborah Parker spent years performing having it together — closing deals by day, writing in the dark when everyone else was asleep. Then she drove into the woods toward something she couldn't explain, and everything she thought she knew about herself changed.

She is the author of The Poet's Song: Love, Power and the Gravity of a Genius — a true story about what it costs to love someone extraordinary, and who you become when you survive it.

Storyteller. Artist. Creator. The woman she is now is nothing like the woman she was when she drove into those woods.

Her writing has reached nearly 30,000 readers — and this is only the beginning.

She lives in the Blue Ridge of East Tennessee with her dog Jake, who runs everything.

Storyteller Podcaster Visual Artist Brand Strategist Substack Creator Author, The Attention Principle Elephant Journal Contributor
Blue Ridge Mountains at dawn

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