Lucky So Far
Breath coughs from my lungs
as I pull out of
dream state #12.
The phantoms with pin prick eyes
fade into the heavy ether.
I sit up, look around,
I am alive,
skin still covering bone
breathing in and out,
out and in.
Yesterday didn’t take me,
reduced to the past
joining 18,412 previous days
who didn’t get the job done.
I swing my legs to the floor
to step on the throat of today,
searching for ambition
and a coin flip of luck.
Far Away
I matched the stars
to your eyes,
blue giants on blue pearls,
the moon
asked where you were,
far away
the only answer I had.
Slow Moving Train
The train pulled away,
starting off slow
so my eyes remained on her
for too long,
my restive tongue
almost calling out.
As the cars picked up speed
sweeping past me
like a slide show
of faces under glass
I saw the shadows
grow tall
and angled,
circus men on stilts
towering over me.
Then the clack
of the tracks
were only echoes
turned to humming,
I was still standing there
staring at the machine’s ghost,
trying to remember
whether her hair was
long or short,
if her eyes penetrated
or soothed.
Finally there was silence,
I was alone
on the platform,
a mild wind
blowing through my hair,
candy wrapper
skittering along the ground.
I wanted to leave
but felt planted
in the concrete
like an ancient tree.
Voices entered my brain,
one begging me to go,
another adamant I stay
and I recognized my own tongue
screaming for me
to run after the train,
follow the rails
until I smelled her perfume again.
The perfect-backdrop sky dimmed
as night approached,
life going on around me,
strange looks
from station workers
slapped me across the face,
their voices,
filled with caution,
reach my ears as if
traveling through thick cloth.
I can’t look at them
or I will collapse in tears,
I can’t speak to them
or they will know
how weak I am.
The train will be back
in a few days,
maybe she will
still be on it,
her eyes searching for me,
body sweating for my touch.
The train will pull in
and I will be here
to meet it
if only as a husk
turning in the twilight.
bio: Christopher Hivner writes from a small town in Pennsylvania surrounded by books and the echoes of music. He has recently been published in Eye on Life, Black Mirror Magazine and the Storm Cycle anthology. A chapbook of poems, “The Silence Brushes My Cheek Like Glass” was published by Scars Publications and another, “Adrift on a Cosmic Sea”, was published by Kind of a Hurricane Press. website: www.chrishivner.com, Facebook: Christopher Hivner - Author, Twitter: @Your_screams
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