To the Rescue

It was like carrying

An injured body through waist-high

Muddy waters

In the pouring rain,

Screaming rationale to the helicopters,

Except the person did not die, they just

Refused to live. 

~

RNH

Capsule

Growth, in all forms,
would be a matter of time
and place, just as the seeds
know
when to unfold
themselves.

~

RNH

Shorn Free

She took her axe to the tree

That had stood bearing

No fruit for far too long,

And she built herself a fine boat

And she sailed away. 

~

RNH

Sugar Hill

in this hill of sand, a diamond,
in this sugar pile running through my fingers, a thorn
worthwhile, and even the hourglass that
pummels me, it
melts, too,
under the laughter of licked tears.

~

RNH

watermark

pencil dropped and picked up

like the stutter in my heart's beat

like the stereo's pulse and bass

pleads, static

blacking out the windows until they
disappear,
their images lost in a thousand bridges
swerved off and their bottled notes acquiring 

this stain. 

~

RNH

edited roses

my scissors cut out shapes i do not

recognize, their slender 

teeth articulate, they know

what they want to say, while i

hypothesize, phrases curling

upon whispy edges, taffeta

crinkling, stabbed by letters.

all of this unfolds

as the silver cuts and cuts

and cuts. 

~

RNH

a once love

the specter of love / bleeds through my irises
divides the mind / with her lightning / red bolts
that fiction / on replay / flashes the same scene
the big screen / cerebral / where we
about to kiss / lean
and disintegrate.
we burst, into an expanding circle of flame, our gazes
trapped on opposite sides, unraveling.

~

RNH

carved to me

you were carved
to me
like a cut heart
on a tree
and our wounds betrayed
the softness and its shell.

~

RNH

for LMH

I will grow anywhere that I am

planted, like the dandelion suns, wild

and free. I will roll

like the resurrection tumbleweeds, 

thirsty for the right moment and ready

for the hope that blooms

with spring, if only I am patient. I am

as strong as the prickly cactus. I am

fluid as the honeysuckle's sweet scent. I, too,
can conquer steel.

My love is a fenceless love.

And wherever adventure halloos, from the stars
to the tree line, just look and you will

find me there. 

~

RNH

emBraced

When it rains,
Will you fold
In fury, be brushed to the gutter
And surrender
Wherever the current may flow, or
Will you bear
This downpour
And its weighted nourishment
Held by your faith
That you hold the sky.

~

RNH

Sustain

desire spiraled out

in blue

sequined tendrils

so that wherever you reached 

you shone. 

~

RNH

inky

i find myself asking,
who are you ?
to the mirror, to the shadow.
who are you ?
to the lamppost, to the street.
and the particles that wait
for an answer, drift
like cursive-drawn eyelashes
discovered by a thumb
on inky cheeks.

~

RNH

Testable

Life does not consist of tests.
At least, not the paper kind.
Not the bubble-in,
circle one,
multiple choice kind.
Not the measurable, scorable,
undefeatable kind.
(At least, they feel that way.)

Life brims full of emotions--

It's in the bubbles of shared laughter.

It's in the circles of people you can trust.

It's in the choices that you always have, to withdraw or persevere.

There are no rulers in this arrangement.
No expectational brackets, no condemning
metrics here.

And although your youth
may be quizzed to its wits' end,
Do not let these decided scales define you.
You are so much more than a printed digit to me.  

~

RNH

before, they said

before you could fly, they said
you should run, and accumulate
such momentum, that all that remained
was to jump

and before you could run, they said
you should walk, and observe
how each first step determined
the next one's precarious fall

and before you could walk, they said
you should crawl, and accept
these limitations
as the order of boxes to check off

but I applauded, shouting praises, when you
sprouted wings and flew
from the trenches to the sky-tracing mountains,
your potential, I already
knew.

~

RNH

acid

and each lie thrown, corrodes

the last one told, until
there is nothing left
of my
face.
 

~

RNH

waistline race

when the measuring tape pulled tighter
insisting *this*
was just enough,
i ran with my scissors through
the finish line and documented 

that I was already done.

~

RNH

The Three Commanders

There was a knocking on the front door
and on the other side stood, armed,
the three commanders of your darkness--
Failure.
Rejection.
Anger.

Alarmed, you did not answer. And back-stepping, watched
in horror,

as
the knob
slowly
turned.
These three could not exist without your belief
in them, and you
opening, knowing this,

realized they were gone.

~

RNH

happy pianist

above black and white keys,
the silly child assumes command,
provokes the chaos for its peaceful coordinates,
the posable harmonies, the labyrinthine
handstands and barreling through
another neck-cringing performance,
pounds out the last possibilities, happy
in the collapse.

~

RNH

Odina

crushed inside a snow globe
longing pressured, mesh embrace
corrugated layers of impressions
wrong, she balanced, lost
her place
in the downpour--
golden moons upon her abdomen,
tiger eyes wide upon her wings.

~

RNH

this is not a one-sided wall, this is give and take

i do not need for you to fix me
i just need for you to listen
and understand why

it was so painful

in the first place.

~

RNH