Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Bold in Love

And when you've found love,
May you have the sense to treasure it,
To clasp it and never let it go. 

~

RNH

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

great dragons

shadows climb the wall
carvings of monsters with pitchforks
their horns and halos sway in a tall line
a black curtain, rising
melodramatically
you
dread with your candle flame flickering, imagining
great dragons
dark, fire-breathing, and in one gulp, swallowing
you whole
you, in your long robe and nightcap
they come closer
you cringe and slowly peer
and find only the bunny slippers
at your feet.

~

RNH

Saturday, June 25, 2016

golden

streaming through the tree stars, feel
the brightness--warm
and immediate 
search the edges
of a stranger and look
for the golden they possess, too.

~

RNH

defense mechanism

windows slide down
doors click
and entrances wish
the inner room

to cease its systemic locking out. 

~

RNH

Friday, June 24, 2016

through the darkness

sometimes we can only
hold
each other's hands while we struggle
it is enough
to witness someone's pain and say, i
will not abandon you, i am
here with you, in the darkness.

~

RNH

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Tender

I'm the type of person
that will tiptoe 
over small things,
replace earthworms to the earth's folds,
side step ants,
busy with their breadcrumb prize.
I'm the kind of person
that will bend, and still green, flourish
like the blades
through the concrete, growing
I believe this softness is invaluable. 

~

RNH

Will

Willful
Would be 
A good word for it
The strength to adhere
And the intrepidity to move on.

~

RNH

Sunday, June 19, 2016

rise up

answers
bubbled up to the surface
buoyed by an independent
sense of good will, that you knew
you could, and should,
offer better
that you could, and will,
mold yourself to that goal.

~

RNH

the yard dash

how the fence looks high
when you quiver inside of it
how the distance seems long
when you have just begun
to run.

~

RNH

bare

the nakedness
of all of your
mistakes laid out
like Christmas presents
wanting nothing more
than your laundry
back in your hands.

~

RNH

Mismatched Belongings : A Short Story

Paul :

I should have been an architect. I should have pursued a career that had something to do with math. Something measurable and calculable. Something you could take apart, make sense of and put back together. Not poetry. Not the irrational matters of the heart.
But here I am. I write constantly. On the computer. At home. At work. I type and type and type. I text message and email myself words and more words. Attempting to save and catalog everything. Like math.
Like the heart is not something breakable, too.
I scribble on bar napkins. I pretend that their bleeding inky letters do not accurately reflect how I feel most of the time. On the verge of tears. Slipping. Wrecked. Running out of paper. Space to breathe. Space to exist--
but... that's not entirely true. (Writer, stop exaggerating.) MOST of the time, I am fine. I am so "fine," in fact, that no one would even notice the exact brink of catastrophe toward which I loom. I hide well beneath a highly-trained facade. Performer extraordinaire. I watched my father fake his way through every social interaction of my childhood. While he turned his real face, his depressed face, toward me.
Most people will not see my own.
I write. I scribble. I draw in the corners--cubes and three-dimensional triangles. Shapes of containment. Boxes to trap in whatever it is that I am feeling. Overwhelmed, mostly.
When the pressure is soothed by neither fuel nor fire, nor drink, nor pen, I wander down to 8th Street. Corner apartment. 4th floor. Crossing is the only one who understands.

Alison, aka "Crossing" :

She was tired of his rough drafts. They always seemed too rigid. Too impenetrable. Like a kid with his fingers stuffed in his ears, singing, "La-la-la, I can't hear you !" What good would it do to edit and proof someone's work, when they never planned on changing the stuff in the first place ? Just going through the motions. Him, writing. Her, reviewing. Him, unaltered. Her, frustrated.

Why do we do this to ourselves ?

~

RNH

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

remnants

it is better
that i am left
with only the small, scattered light
by which to write you, explained
the darkness to the moon
and the spiders to their destroyed
webs.

~

RNH

Monday, June 13, 2016

the shape

they are big shoes to fill
little one, with saucer-eyes
all leaders, world-changers and old souls
have felt this way and never
been handed a straight and narrow
path to follow, yours, too,
will morph and shift and how you
see
the shape of your destiny
will so much determine
its fruition.

~

RNH

Thursday, June 9, 2016

V

fear is not the only force to be reckoned with
and love, the victory that names you
unconquerable.

~

RNH

lion, she

i could shake my mane like you,
said the female, and roar
as loud as your voice carries,
but lo,
i have the whole
of the sun within me
i am
quiet
and powerful, at once. 

~

RNH

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

bottled

there's a footprint in tiny white
blonde sugar sand particles
sticking to the underside of my fingers
so that every touch leads
to a fondness of memory imprinted
on soft land
every brush, a letter to ourselves.

~

RNH

cluck, cluck

so many chicken and egg
stories and yet the clucking
furthers no proof.

~

RNH

rung halves

when the roar of the opposition surrounds you
when the gust seems impermeable
as the concrete walls
and no surface
gently gives
lean
on the sturdy ladder
between us
and hands held, we
will sing into the wind.

~

RNH

Monday, June 6, 2016

translation

she bobs with the white circle, red
rope harnessing the distress
signal, communication
tied to a person's blink.

~

RNH

furious

resting in the temporary
like wings inside of a fire
like blossoms closed to the swirl
of discouraging wind
like the cardinal pelting
itself against the mirror.

~

RNH

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

not goodbye

just listen just listen just listen just
listen and tell her that you love her

~

RNH