You told me you felt that our relationship was a pool.

That I have jumped into the deep end,
while you are still wading in the shallow end steps.
That you don't understand how I managed to get
myself into the deep end so quickly.

The thing about pools is this:

If you don't cannonball into the deep end,
you may never actually get in.
If you're standing at the shallow end,
the water could be too cold,
too hot,
too many leaves floating around,
too many bugs,
anything could convince you not to
fully submerge into the water.

If you cannonball in,
the hard part is over with.
You've dedicated all of yourself to the water;
mind, body, and soul.
There's no more second guessing.
There's no other excuse as to why you shouldn't swim.
There's no going back and that's ok,
because in all reality you wanted to swim.
You just needed to let go of the fear
that swimming will be too challenging.

Our relationship is like a pool.
I have dived in,
ready to fill this pool with love for you.
While you are still on the second step,
afraid of me.
Afraid that the love I give to you will be fleeting.
That I will leave you like everyone else has.
That my love for you is a joke,
that my love for you will never be enough.

I have a confession to make.
I have the same fears.
But I am still here,
in the deep end.
Waiting for you to look past your fears,
to accept them and dive head first anyway.
If you stand on the steps the whole time,
you will never swim.
You will never know the love I could give you.

Dive in baby.
I promise I'll catch you.

Actually scratch that.

I miss the things we planned to do,
The drives
The lunch dates
The lazy mornings watching movies
And how our just woken up tongues would taste.

I miss the memories I hoped to have,
But I guess you didn't think the same

I'm not quite sure what I said,
Why it all turned out this way
Or what caused you to leave me sitting alone in that park.

Maybe it was the alcohol,
Or maybe you were afraid of what might happen.

Either way.
When I looked down at you
That one lazy morning,
Right before you gave up on me,
I wanted you
With all my heart

But in your eyes I saw how apprehensive you were.
I saw the barbed wire around your tongue
And the metal fences behind your eyes I'm not strong enough to climb.

It doesn't help you kept building it higher.

So to make it simple.
When people ask me what's wrong
Because they see the bags you left under my eyes
Or the flesh you took that used to pad my ribs.
I remember how I came home smelling like you
Because we hadn't stopped touching each other for hours.

And I'll tell them,
I had a few late nights
Waiting for a friend to get home
So I knew they were safe.

If we are being honest
I know you will come home,
But I am not your home.
I tried,
I would have done close to anything to be

But I was too weak to climb your fenses
And I cut myself too many times on your sharp edges

If you hadn't left I would have let myself be cut to ribbons.

the smell before it rains and the taste of that first sip of tea in -20 degrees

the slow untangling of your thoughts with every beat of the drum, the way the wind blows right through you just enough to move you forward and never enough to blow you down

the sound of typing fingers when you know you're onto something good, the feeling of your own, and finally not his, skin

the seasons are changing and baby so are you / six senses are helping you develop into someone new

It’s strange to be a stranger to you
Even though years have passed,
I hope you think of me
And how we made it last.

Your golden curls and goofy smile,
Burned inside my memory
School yard parks late at night,
The way you made me smile,
Oh so bright.

I wonder what you are doing now,
I hope you are happy and not alone.
I hope you found laughter
And a love that healed and was strongly grown.

Do you remember how we told each other everything,
How proud I was of the silly twisted bracelet ring?

Are you still Afraid if lady bugs,
The way they fly, they way they crawl?
Do you still give the world's warmest hugs,
Is Elmo is the best above all?

I grew up loving you,
So I beginning to accept that will never change,
But the fact that I don't know you any more,
will always be forever strange....

Juliet, your Juliet.
I grew out of her.
She was all dreamy, and fabled.
She was brave enough to love you.
She was brave enough to be crumpled to shreds yet fake a smile flawlessly.
She grew on you.

Juliet, your Juliet.
I grew out of her.
She was graceful and too kind to be true.
She was the daisy of your garden, where flowers weren't just a few.
She loved sunshine as much as the misty moon.
She was ravishingly rhythmic. Forming melodies out of those midnight stars,
adding beats and verses to your mundane mornings.
Your Juliet, your Daisy, your sanguine Sestina
all of them. Yet, nothing better than a reverie.

Juliet, your Juliet.
I grew out of her.
She was all chirpy and consoling.
Solace was what made her.
Her love was fire, worth burning for.
At times, her eyes form glaciers,
arctic and numb.
At times, she feels worn out and ready to drop.
But, Juliet's audacious to hold on tight yet, taken down by you. Remember, she grew on you.

Juliet, your Juliet.
I grew out of her.
She was delicate but humorous.
Compassion knit her soul together.
You tell her, she is all you ever wanted and is grateful for.
But, the woman lying next to you hears the same.  

She was a writer and left you one.
Juliet, your Juliet.
Not anymore.

I saw the sun steep
into the seascape ―
lonely as a drowning
    wave
         on still-waters

the dimming of the day
rescinding evanescent daylight                                                         ­         .
fading with the slack tide
         lost at sea ―
a gloaming moment
         let fall from
the remains of the day,
like some other passing
sea bird's molted feather
drifts away untamed

I sit silent as the driftwood
lingering at the watermark,
watching a random gust
    erase the footprints
of another recurring day, 
bearing abandoned memories
    and vacant heartbeats,
atrophied in the drifting sands

    and I see you walking
    towards the abating  
    midnight sunset ―
         but I know
    you're just a mirage;    
like the dimming afterglow
of so many waning moons
            elapsed
         
ever-changing tides grow low  
and promises made lightly  
         do ebb away
          
Scanning the distant horizon ―    
    a blindfold heart    
    mooning all at sea;
parsing a deserted shoreline,
    wondering if love
          is too late ,..
    to stem the tide ―


        harlon rivers

      30   May   2018

You gorgeous *******.
I like you.

My father walked me down the aisle,
But my mother held my arm.
He went with me,
But we went not towards the altar,
But towards the door.

My father walked me down the aisle,
And the ***** rang through the church,
Humming through the elaborate crown molding,
Carved by my ancestors.

He went,
Not beside me,
But before me,
And I watched,
As he was illuminated by the bright,
Overbearing,
Texas sun.

My father walked me down the aisle,
But I did not wear white.
My father walked me in silence,
And I shed tears not for a man standing at the altar,
But for the one I would never see again.

My father walked me down the aisle,
And no veil obscured my face.
All eyes were upon me, but not for my pristine beauty,
Instead for my clenched jaw and furrowed brow,
Severe and fierce to distract from my glassy eyes.

My father did not leave me at the end of our walk to sit beside my mother.
She clung to me for support and sobbed breathlessly,
Loudly,
Unavoidably,
And I carried her with one hand,
My sister the other,
And walked towards my future.
A future family,
Not one person more,
But one person less.
I walked,
One final time,
With him.

My father walked me down the aisle,
And I will never forget it.
Hundreds of eyes isolating my family from the crowd,
Slow and muffled sounds drowning in the deafening beat of my heart,
Blurred faces staring,
Black heels clacking against the cobbled path from the church,
The anguished wails of my mother,
The whimpering of my sister,
And the wooden box that glided before us,
Pulling,
A string tied to our patriarch,
The pin key of our family,
Pulled taut and then snipped with the slam of the hearse doors.

My father walked me down the aisle,
Before I had a chance to grow up.
He walked me,
Out of the church,
Away from the altar,
Never to be walked again.