I sit in the sun room, I am shaded for the sun
is only newly risen, low slung, just above the horizon,
behind me, over my shoulder, early morn warm

Slivers of sun rays yellow highlight the wild green lawn,
freshly nourished by torrential rains of the prior eve

The wind gusts are residuals, memoirs of the hurricane
that came for a peripheral visit, your unwanted cousin Earl,
in town for the day, too bad your schedule
is fully booked, but he keeps raining on you,
staying on the phone for so long, that the goodbye,
go away, hang up relief is palpable

The oak trees are top heavy with leaves frothy like a new cappuccino,
the leaves resist the sun slivers, guarding the grass
from browning out, by knocking the rookie rays to and fro,
just for now, just for a few minutes more,
it is advantage trees, for they stand taller in the sky
than the youthful teenage yellow ball

I sit in the sun room buffered from nature's battles external,
by white lace curtains which are the hallmark
of all that is fine in Western Civilization,

and my thoughts drift to suicide.

I have sat in the sun room of my mind, unprotected.
with front row seats, first hand witness to a battle unceasing

Such that my investigations, my travails along the boundary line
between internal madness and infernal relief from mental pain
so crippling, is such that you recall begging for cancer or Aids

Such that my investigations, my travails along the sanity boundary
are substantive, modestly put, not inconsiderable

Point your finger at me, demanding like every
needy neurotic moderne, reassurance total,
proof negative in this instance, of relevant expertise!

Tell us you bona fides, what is your knowing in these matters?

Show us the wrist scars, evidential,
prove to us your "hands on" experiential!

True, true, I am without demonstrable proofs
of the first hand, my resume is absent of
razors and pills, poisons and daredevil spills,
guns, knives, utensils purposed for taking lives

Here are my truths, here are my sums

If the numerator is the minutes spent resisting the promised relief
of the East River currents from the crushing loneliness that
consumed my every waking second of every night of my years of despair
                           divided by
a denominator that is my unitary, solitary name,
then my fraction, my remainder, is greater than one,
the one step away from supposed salvation...

Yet, here I am sitting in the sun room buffered from
nature's battles by white lace curtains which are the hallmark
of all that is fine in Western Civilization

I am a survivor of mine own World War III,
carnaged battlefields, where white lace curtains,
were not buffers but dividers tween mis en scenes,
variegated veins of colored nightmares, reenactments of
death heroics worthy of Shakespeare

Did I lack for courage?
Was my fear/despair ratio insufficient?

These are questions for which the answers matter only to me,
tho the questions are fair ones, my unsolicited ******,
they are not the ones for which I herein write,
for they no longer have relevance, meaning or validity,
for yours truly

I write poetry by command, by request, good or bad,
this one is a bequest to myself, and also a sidecar for an old friend,
who asked in passing to write what I know of suicide,
unaware that the damage of hurricanes is not always
visible to the naked heart

These hands, that type these words are the resume of a life
resumed,
life line remains scarred, but after an inter-mission, after an inter-diction, an inter-re-invention
in a play where I was an actor who could not speak
but knew every line, I am now the approving audience too...

But I speak now and I say this:

There are natural toxins in us all,
if you wish to understand the whys, the reasons,
of the nearness of taking/giving away what belongs to you,
do your own sums, admit your own truths
query not the lives of others, approach the mirror...

If you want to understand suicide,
no need to phone a friend, ask the expert,
ask yourself, parse the curtains of the
sun room and admit, that you do understand,
that you once swung one leg over the roof,
gauged the currents speed and direction,
went deep sea fishing without rod or reel
and you recall it all too well, for you did the math
and here I am, tho the tug ne'er fully disappears,
here I am, here I am writing to you,
as I sit in the sun room.

Memorial Day, 2011

In a forest, where bird songs are silencers to a pistol and their feathers are scattered hopes, like broken dreams are to fantasies, I sit.
I stretch my arms, wide enough to fit grief and happiness in my muddy hands that I use to bury unspoken apologies and eulogies for days I have not yet lived.

I begin to stare aimlessly at the sky trying to spot the night moon. Its silhouette, that I trace with my finger.
I've drawn
And in the folds of the night, I hold you close
like day does dawn.

I let your depression stain my cheeks and see it drip between the gaps in my teeth,
sting my gum,
and so your language interweaves itself upon wounded scars on my tongue, so when i return back home, i return with the same cuts identical to your tongue that you hung


I don't want to sound too much of a stranger to you when I talk thus tonight, I’ll choose to tie happiness to things that have asked for no such burden
and stictch my lips silent to silence our silent violence.

My eyes bounce back at the hazy sky as if it’ll tame your inner broken and mould it into a less wild creature
more civil, more mature
less aggressive, less of a spirit

Your spirit appears in the bezels of my mind
my trachea catches fire burning deep into my whines ,
my breath disappearing into a silent hymn in the dull light
and watch my tongue chameleonize into a trillion hues of white
until my tongue becomes a graveyard for all my white lies

Until pain becomes a part of my diet,
until I'm able to chew the residual images of a broken girl, until her sadness becomes the air I breathe
until her inner warrior becomes the battle field never fought in
until I'm able to swallow sadness when chugged down my throat,

until I'm able to befriend your wild.

I know that it's hard
You can feel the anger and frustration rising up from your core
unsure of whether it will seep out of your eyes or your lungs
You're not sure how to react
Do you tear down everything in sight
or do you crawl into bed for the rest of the week
letting yourself fall into darkness

The reality is, you'll do both
Some days you'll want to yell at the top of your lungs
You'll want to throw rocks at windows
rip all your pictures and throw them in the fire
And on other days you'll want to be left alone
in the warm comfort of your bed
with a box of tissues and the saddest music you can find

I know you don't understand why it had to be you
Why you had to be the one to feel so broken
Out of all the people in the world
What did you ever do to deserve this
You'll feel tempted to blame yourself
for the hurt caused by someone else

It's not your fault
It's not your responsibility to control their actions
The fact is, you can't change what happened
As much as you want to, you can't turn back time
What's done is done
Now you're left in the rubble
I know that that's not fair
Nothing seems fair enough

Everything will hurt
Getting up in the morning with a fake smile
Watching the people in your life so full of joy
Forcing yourself to do anything but wallow in pity
It's not easy
You need to give yourself more credit
I know that when you say you're doing okay
you probably aren't, and that's okay

It won't be okay for a while
I wish I could tell you it will but that's not true
It will **** today, tomorrow and the next day after that
You'll have happy days, but you won't be happy

You may not believe it or even want to hear this but
at some point, you'll wake up and it'll hurt a little less
At the end of the day, you are the person you're left with
You will learn how to let yourself feel better
because if you don't, who will?
You don't deserve to feel sad forever
You deserve the chance for happiness
You deserve it all

No one can know your pain
Not nearly as well as yourself
But the rope won't take it away
It just gives it to someone else

.        Tear in the eye
     wound in the heart

   Teardrops ... that drip
       from these eyes
  shall never be hidden
No mask of humiliation
          shall cloak
   an empathetic soul

Tears fall without shame ...

   Cleansing tears wept
       of undisguised
   merciful surrender,
  purging the essence
    of mending heart;
         shamelessly
       pouring forth,
            unsifted 
     grain and chaff
     together as one
   to willingly exhale
compassionate breathe ―
     into a sympathy
  impoverished  world

      Being mindful ―
      never wanting
   misspoken words
         to further
     another’s pain
      when there is
   an unwillingness
to unveil the very core,
the wisdom of silence
             reveals

Lean into imperfection's blossoms …

    Embrace the light
     from disregarded
           tears shed,
   releasing the traces
   of the spirit of love
      within the soul

         Blessed be
     the empathetic
         almsgiver
consoling with love
       without pity
       Giving love
        is to share
    unconditionally
with eternal purpose;
      flooding forth
   a flow of empathy
         onto a love
     deprived world …

       Love more ~


                                                          ­      *Harlon Rivers