Manifestation

And when they pulled you from the river
The water remembered what you had been through
Held your silhouette and its aching past
Like a clay mold
Hollow, unchanged
And waited for you, one day
To return
This person
Scarred
But stronger than before.

~

RNH

proposal refusal

your brain pulled one way
and your heart, the other
laughing and shaking its halo of bent,
brilliant arrows
your emotions
all zig-zagged from the impact
after the collision, when your intellect
said, no no no no no.

~

RNH

glued

this place is like wood glue
it sticks to your teeth
stuffs cotton in your mouth
and it adheres to everything
your flesh and your freedom
feeling squished
between the impulse
to riot, quit
or both
stuck
to the flytrap wrapped
around you.

~

RNH

(in brackets)

there is love in every perishable
moment, each bracket
holds meaning, each pause
a new chance
to start over and remedy
from misunderstanding, clarity
as perfect as the folding
of our entwined hands.

~

RNH

woven

the truth trickled out
small puffs of curling smoke
spun silky
grew new leaves
and wove into the sky.

~

RNH

burnt

burnt to the crisp
love kept its pursed lips
pressed
holding venerable secrets
like breath
unable to expand
or explain
themselves...

~

RNH

Writing Exercise

Writing requires both stillness and pressure. It takes both to create a diamond.

~

RNH

in your caricature

zealous
for the unsolvable puzzle
Oz behind the velvet curtains
self creating the edited version
the fast-blinking, rapid-thinking
secret to the performance
in the rolled-up sleeves
and keys swallowed.

~

RNH

ashes

If the fragility of life
breaks its heart upon your fingers
crumbling bits, where once
it dreamed of
eternity
fear not,
from dust, we are born.

~

RNH

cutout

the shadow of you
kept me cornered
crouching under its cutout
the dark, the light
flickering from your teeth
i knew
the solution to the scattered
puzzle strewn
about my feet
but could not move
could not feel
it, til i
severed myself
free.

~

RNH