I dream of a long awaited  freedom.
I find myself alone on a beach.
Pale sands before me stretching to the azure blue of the ocean.
I turn and I notice that there is but a single trail of footsteps in the sand behind me.
The soft golden plain before me untouched, unspoilt, virginal.
I breathe the warm sea breeze and my throat is tight and rasping.
I glance down at my body and discover I am naked.
Vulnerable and unprotected.
My form is thin and fragile and I muse I must have been here for a time.
As if emerging from the deepest slumber, bleary eyed and cloudy of mind.
With a tangible feeling  within of a severance, a long awaited shift.
I squint far in the distance and to my surprise I see a house atop a hill.
I notice that the windows of this house are crisscrossed in iron bars.
There is a long drive leading to a a set of unyielding padlocked gates installed  amidst  high stone walls that surround the property.
I remember then...This is the home of my childhood.
An incarceration felt long after I had flown.
Those same bars and walls carefully recreated and erected in my own life, by my own hand.
I take a final glance and turn away.
The single set of prints in the sand a reminder of my own path , waiting to be trod.
Realisation that the old ways can no longer serve me.
An awareness of the power within me to break free from those who seek to control,silence and limit my growth.
The walls and bars offering not protection, but oppression.
A disconnection and detachment from others and ultimately from oneself.
Waging a war against an invisible enemy until one is but a vessel full  of fear and discontent.
I shall not visit the house on the hill again.
My home shall be without walls and endless as the ocean before me.

Too many shattered Mirrors
Mirroring my sins.

Too many walls
Hindering my wings.

My growth remains
  still
as silence Kills.

How do you love the
Unloved?

An indifferent ache swirls in the silence
throbbing like a dancing candle flame;
no one understands the heart of silence
moving the darkness with its ancient dance

Its voice is only felt but never heard
the way it whispers the reality it bears;
disrobing the nakedness of a fragile heart
exposing inherent truth deep in disguise
retouching the chaos passing of love laid bare

Unspoken emotions that nobody hears
float around a muted tongue benumbed by fear
doubt is a bitter taste that knows not love
searching for a labyrinth to begin to wend a better way
trying to feel the unfelt warmth of love in an endless cold
waiting on a frozen emptiness that never thaws

No one understands the haunting fear,
... surly it couldn't happen again ― and surly it will,
a heart stifled silent,  silence doth loudly peal
                poignant dreaded words:

                 "It's not you ― it's me ,.......
      I love you but I'm not in love with you"

and like winter dreaming for the sun to reappear,
to come back again and dry the memory of fallen tears,
a hushed heart falls off the earth lost in ether shadows lay
mooning in the lonely silence within moonlit dapple

When you pull love too close ― it will push you away
some silence heals ― a dissonant silence cuts to the bone

       Only the lonely feel a silent voice sigh
         Only one hears a silenced heart die ...


               harlon rivers ... March 2018

some days are like rain,
   they make your body ache

you feel the pain
   rise through you

you close your eyes
   you remember

open your eyes
   you swiftly forget

it's easier to stuff it all down
   right?

that dull ache in your wrist
   is a forecast of rain

you think, oneday
   you will rise to the day

like the phoenix
   emerging

but a storm rushes in
   and rains on your parade

you open your mouth to speak
   no one understands you, anyway

all you can think of is hiding,
   it's all you can dream of

you ask: this is life?
   you're bewildered

you try not to think,
   because when you think you remember

all those lukewarm friends
   everyone who left

some days are like rain
   they are silent and still

the disassociation takes over
   the emptiness seeps in

the rain gets into your hollow house
   of vain imaginations

i pray that this rain might
   serve as some sort of healing elixir

for my bones need fixing,
   my heart needs healing.