I feel the river’s heartbeat

                        or is it just my own?

                                 I am the river,

                                                               shed your assumptions about me

                                          into me, and let them sink

                                          down to my muddled muddied bottom

to be engulfed, like your feet,

                                 when they squish imprints into my sand,

                                                                     just to be buried, remolded by my shifting water

to prevent the colonization of my body.

                                                                                                            I am each grain of my sand,

                                                                                                            every pebble and drop of water:

                                                                                                      I am swimming with life.

                                                                                          I am not just flowing from point

                                                               to point. Don’t you see yourself in my reflection?

                                          Don’t you feel my heart beating in your toes?

                  Hear my memories whisper in the current:

            One winter, years ago, a boy tentatively tiptoed across me, building trust,

until I finally let him skate and glide along my ice. Spring blossomed,

                  and I melted for him. He fell in love with the way my body flowed, 

         no longer frozen and forbidden. He dove into me, 

      exploring my every rock and crevice, caressing me with every stroke.

                                                I met his friends: they jumped into me, tumbled, wrestled

in me, skipped rocks across my surface; the boy forgot 

how to be gentle when they were there. 

                                                            And one day, he hit his head hard on a rock, carelessly jumping. 

                                                            On my waves I swiftly carried him to shore, I tried to stop him drowning.

                                    But in the end it was his own mind, shattered from the blow, 

                                                                     that pulled him under.

                                                   He was suffocating inside his head, 

                                                            so I surrendered my own breath for him, 

                                                               but still he grew tired of swimming in me. 

                                                               I kept carefully cascading for him every day, promising paradise. 

                                                                                                   I worshipped him…  

                                                                                             but his feet grazed

                                                                                                      my pining sand less

                                                                                                   and less. Summer came, but he did not. 

                                                                                                               He found new rivers. He found oceans,

                                                                                                lakes, and seas; he forgot about me.

                                                                                              Don’t you see the scars around my edges,

                                                                                                                  my once-emaciated banks?

                                                                                                                     That broken boy’s withdrawal 

                                                                                                            caused the soil from my banks to flood me, 

                                                                                                      to sink me until I was dry. 

That boy made mud out of me.

                                                                     Then I saw his face one late autumn morning,

                                                   and my tears filled me back up again, ready to catch him,

                                                   to envelop him in my ever-loving waves, 

                                          but clouds gathered and fear began to freeze me, 

                                 icing him out: he would leave me again.

                                               The lakes would always be smoother, kinder,

                                          the oceans vaster than I could ever be, 

                                                            the seas, the seas, 

                                                                     would give him endless opportunities…

                                                                     But oh! His skates stroke my surface… begging entrance… 

                                                                              how I missed his caress! OH

———Was it always this sharp?——— 

                                                   I fracture and crrrack to protect myself, 

                                                   and my ice roars… for years, 

                                                                                       even after he’s gone. 

                                                                  I’m starting to find beauty in my cries: 

                                                                           the way they mingle with the ripple of my waves 

                                                                                                   and whisper my stories to the passing winds,

                                                                                                                        keep me loud and unafraid, give me a chance

                                                                                                      to learn to flow a new direction, softer, 

                                                                                     melt vulnerable again, let someone swim again, 

                              sweeter, closer, stronger, 

                                 feel how the river’s heartbeat pulses

steady as ever.