He squeezed his voice out of the throat  
an old Dreadnought guitar
He bared his soul to anyone
who would listen to his psalms;
purging the torn an anxious silence within,
surrendering an unspoken heart in a song

Some days you feel
like you live too long
Watching the recurrent tides
recede and grow low
This life, such an unplanned journey,
given to lose what’s been lost once more

How many times
must a heart be broken?
To realize a heart heavy
won’t stop beating strong
Steal away the broken inside
these flesh forsaken walls;
breathe one’s last bated breath
in the peace of a song

Sometimes life falls
w a a a y y y y short of expectations
Though passing time
may assuage evanescent dreams,
there is a stillness that floods the moment
awakening a motherless child in a soul

Fate befallen a wordless silence
in the aftermath of finally letting go
Fingertips no longer calloused
Dreadnought wood dusty gone cold
Melancholy madness echoes unrequited

A lonely bird without a song ...


* September 2016 © H.  Rivers*
              all rights reserved

You begged me to read you my poems aloud but my words came out slurred from the wetness of the back of your tongue and my rolling tears I told you I could never write a poem about you because I only write about things that break my heart but you've clawed your way out of me and now you're just another empty entry in my journal

my mind is a vassal collection of thoughts to my body where my skin can't remember the feeling of your hands but my mind has an acute sense of your words

My brain is aching:

I'm not crazy I'm not crazy I'm not crazy
I remember every syllable and vowel your rotund mouth spoke I remember everything I remember everything

You always asked me why i was choosing to write about the collective 'them' over you but you chose her over me inspite of everything your lips formed

"I love the way your skin smell oh god I love it" says your darting tongue, but does her skin smell the same as mine or were you just confused that night? Because one time you told me my scent was so familiar in the back of your nasal cavity, that there was no mistaking it was me

I never thought I could write you a line of poetry because you were too good to me but I've written you a book because you're the bane of my existence and my god I can hear my blood rushing through my chest as it tightens and my airways choke up like one of your asthma attacks, and you reach for your inhaler so you can breathe but for me nothing can dissipate this feeling

I think of you with her on repeat like an all night movie marathon of my worst nightmares and how my brain mixed up what it was like to care about another human and how to tear one apart with my tongue

My memory is full of color and passion~ No amount of time could dull it

Its as if I still have the paint brush in hand.. our movements of the sea
and this painting of my memory is still etched inside me

The air is as hot and sticky as could be
your hands slowly gliding and lightly stroking me

Kisses so hot that they kindled and leap at the ready fuel of our need
Muscles clenching and tensing as our passion grows with greed

Weakened and undone now I arch to meet his lips and tongue that now savor
tasting of my flesh and most prized possession as though it were a banquet of the sweetest of flavor

He now whispers the sweetest
of words that I have ever heard
I want to watch you enjoy and want to watch you fill up with me
As I slowly part my legs allowing him to enter and finally set me free

This memory I hold very close to my heart
this painting of my love and our beautiful art

Open the door into an avenue
Where words are formed
And fall onto the page
Black is the ink
That scars the writing
Facile is the thought
That is sent to offer
Stalled  is the sentence
All is not first in thought
Supercilious is the adjective
That threatens the poems simplicity

I write in the dark
I write in the light
A search for a synthetic twilight