The River that Swallowed the Bind

Took you
Eyes placed inch by inch a mission stubbornly circled
Around that white column, it spun
What is left, only that river keeps
Somewhere, as I write now, a silver stone shapes with the tide
This makes sense

I recall, many, many years ago
Before that café was known
In my own handwriting, I asked
For a dreamer to dream
Never had I believed it was my wish
To have ridden with him on that wave, but I did
I shall sleep no longer with, nor see that yawn
It was another’s reality, it wasn’t mine, but it was
A distant ach owning my steel, rapping my trust, with those image perfect hands
I do not remember—but the words, that time—I always will

What that river sows, will remain hidden beneath the sand
Through the thousands of summer’s yellow ovals that drift upon its surface
As it was, it is, always, will be there, long after you or I leave
This makes sense

One can not rewrite what was crafted
For they were made, they are what can not be taken back…
But perhaps, retold—well, gather that red ink and your imagination
Author of the one on a quest to find the adventure of themselves
While sacrificing the very path
Soon, might he discover, that an elevator isn’t a door, nor I his enemy
But certainly not his friend

A year ago, I stuffed your bandana into my drawer—this I intentionally kept
To remember a boy I once imagined sitting next to his tired unlaced boots
By the bend in the river, an apple core and a peanut butter jar
With his arms tugging in his legs, ankles crossed, cheek resting on his knee
Wrapping me in the blanket he found, before the creek knew of you or I

I ripped up everything else, sometimes I regret that
But those tares manifests what has become
That boy, did I ever know? Existence goes without, as did I

Peace I now have, with trust I struggle
As surreal as it seems, as different as I am
Even though I cannot remember, our awkward past
I guess the river keeps not everything
To me, this makes sense—the story that was us

Susie