standing on the river’s ledge

By Rebecca Siegel

We could get lost (found) a hidden lake and my body thin, bloated, and life-less or life-full? As I am still alive (face down) in a silver pool of bubbling springs.

I wanted the youth fountain and all I got was hypo-toxia -- I see statues of Poseidon at the bottom of the river and gurgling brooks and waterfalls.

Yesterday some-body told me that they used to look for waterfalls with the last person that they were in love with. Yesterday I felt cavernous because I have never been in love and she has “the last person” she was in love with.

I jumped into the river to find solace, to find waterfalls and rainbows and that feeling of lying in grass when it is eighty degrees out, your body blanketed in sun rays, heat integrated completely.

I think love would be light blue, or Cerulean and sex is magenta. Sex when you are in love must be a deep, rich burgundy immersion in water and pleasure (red) and I don’t know (or remember?) how to talk to people, so how will I ever?

What if confidence replaced my navy blue nights, and room-leaving didn’t feel like Prometheus.

Why can’t I constantly feel like I do when dancing in summer rain? Why can’t I get lost in the sea, lain with that familiar face in the dim-lit back room of the bar. Knick-knacks and knock-knocks on the bathroom door when I find nothing but ashes and powder scattered across the tiles as blue and red scream shrill across my tears?

Why can’t my love turn from pale, negative existence into waterfalls and nocturnal smiles?

Exasperated sighs in the light of the sun rise after never having fallen into sleep. Haunted by memories and the profoundly lost (whom I often wish could be found).