Literary Yard

Search for meaning

‘The Difference’ and other poems by Eli Slover

By: Eli Solver

The Difference

I am a fox in wolf’s clothing pretending
to stare sheepishly ahead
while my mind seeps out of my ears
and into the sound waves
curling around my feet like fog.
I am not present
in a moment of haves and have nots
because I cannot see the difference,
but I can hear it.
When you call dysphoria
a condition
and not
an understanding,
I don’t get it.
The more I see of this world,
the less I want to, because
I cannot see the difference
between a bleeding city
and a crumbling child.
Though one may be distinguished
by their cry and the other their silence.

###

The Heart’s Condition

When it happens you’ll feel
a lot
and then less
and less.
You’ll want to die
and then you
will feel
dead
.
Trust me,
it’s a process
that ends, like all systems.
Remember that, when your heart
begins to secede from
the meat of your broken chest.
Don’t fear when you can
no longer feel it beat.
As the sun rises
so too shall
you
.
You will rise from
the fog of death
to turn to the land of the living,
even if only for a moment,
most likely so, in fact.
Then, in rolling bursts of color—
sound will come next—
your heart will return,
upon this sudden realization,
once more to beat,
and to beat stronger than before.

###


Body of Water

Do you see this hand?
This is the mouth of the Nile,
rushing backwards, ferrying light.
Do you see the veins of my arm?
These are the Tigris and Euphrates,
mother and father of civilization.
Within I carry the weight of life.
Can you see these feet?
These curled toes have swallowed
the same water that drowned a titan.
I recoiled from the chill, but
my legs stayed, swollen and shivering.
Can you see the Arctic in my arteries?
Shrinking glaciers melt into heavy muscle.
I am entrenched in the dark unknown.
Do you see this gushing head?
Do you see this rushing
flow of blue and red?
Do you see this body of water
held back by a veneer of skin?
There is a current within me,
and it is not easily restrained;
But when the levee falls,
when the dam breaks,
when the water rises,
then,
then you will see me.

###

Twin Flame

I don’t want to know a life without you.
You are a soft fire light in winter’s night.

I got lost in the shining oceans blue
That, until close, held me in your warm sight.
I fell in the waves and forgot to swim.
I slipped underneath your surface and watched
The disproportionate world on a whim.
I looked up and saw only the sun, blotched.
Before I drowned though, you put me to shore.

I didn’t want this life without my ember,
But, it’s true, your eyes don’t shine anymore.
Shivering in the cold, I remember:
Loneli’ess hurts less than a love lost.
Alone, I am left to wonder the cost.

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