i have cried in the veil of darkness. no one hears me here. i am sure to be quiet. crumpled tissues hushed in fuzzy sweaters, comfort envy only known to skin. closed doors are quiet locks. click. turn. remain steadfast in will. you are almost there. I've known smiles once upon a time in dusty books laid upon scripted journals in fancy ink when vitality was more desired than finality. so i sit. and they roll down my face, beckoning to be wiped. i am defiant in the cause. my hand refuses to leave my side.  drip drop and I hear small feet buzzing around on warm carpet, voice booming he is a superhero. behind closed doors, I feel a rush of a cape donned from a blanket around shoulders more bigger than mine. so i wipe my face. sip water. say a little prayer. rise. -b.r.rivera Dedicated to all those living in chronic pain. Now As a U.S. Pain Foundation Ambassador, I am advocating and bringing awareness. I share my story. Please follow along with me o...

Wrists are scraped slightly on warm metal bars kissed by the sunshine. Somewhere, clickity clackety plastic things numbs the street air  in electric buzz from spokes creating musical noise in its own rhythm. I turn back to look at her, she smiles. Shirt ballooned by wind ushering me to continue before I slow her down. Our mission of  10 cent Popsicles and quarter bag of chips are relentless in the haze of summer and sweltering sun. memories now a blur. Mommom calls us, her voice a beacon in the city of  asphalt and pavement which we spill upon and she immediately nurses.  street lights fade to Black replace lightning bugs abuzz in  Neon twirling into our smiles  of small conversation and popped bubble gum defying gravity on fire escapes  dangling toes a reminder of our landmark. Finally, a small breeze pollen upon dewy knees to greet us  good night summers of nostalgia  birthed from bike spokes. ~b.r.rivera ...

There is nothing really beautiful about the fall. The glorification is all about the triumph. The victor. The applause that one gets from the thunderous crowd, at last. Perhaps it's all a matter of perspectives, but the tanglement of hair, the bloodied scrapes from asphalt, the collected dirt from fingernails, has its own beauty. We are expected to be beautiful in times from the fall from grace. Keep it together. Lipstick on. Shirts pressed. Muster on from tar pits unscathed, painted face on like nothing happened. There is no need to rely simply on the truths of reality for we even believe the lie ourself: I'm okay. We tell others. Text them. Email. Tweet. Post. Go, share to the world with our painted on glorified face that we are okay. We are not. And it's okay. Where have I convinced myself that the fall cannot be just as beautiful as the eventual walking tall?  Somewhere in my muddied face, I am still me. My soul, my strength, my inner peace. Somewhere in the blood, the ...

I am not impressed. Not impressed with the way your tongue moves, shifts vowels and constants together in a stinging way to reflect more vinegar than honey. Not impressed with bones of structure that God himself removed a rib to construct thee, but you don't fine my moves that Heavenly. Not all all moved. Captivated by goodbyes becoming more welcoming than hellos, and bitter sweets are accompanied by rum. And I'm numb. Surgically altered into slices and dices, how you expertly cared out the compassion and left the nothingness within me. Exalted. Never exalted. By pillars of upon pedastles that former lovers gave with ease, molehills become mountains from the fragment of small nonsensical things. I am not loved. Rabbits out the hat aren't your thing. Magic tricks aren't illusions so easily carved into truthful lips. He sways back and forth to falsify eyes where shadows are grasped by time instead of emotional movements. Grass is not greener. Never is. Maintenance require...

Pity the woman that feels her soul falling down the Rabbit hole, The intricate madness of all things joy and despair. Where down is up And up is down, Riddles become the silenced of A former lovers sound, And sweet nothing's are rushed Instead of hushed into slick Dick magnificence that births Life of lust. Pity her For she keeps falling more Endlessly Darkness becomes a tunnel Pigeonholed and clipped wings can't fly Nor see. Air all around, wishing For the solidarity of Sweet soil of the ground The firmness of real arms The swooping of a hero absent A man, not everything, Shoulder not wept on Laughter not heard. She falls. Deeper. Deeper, still. Fall deeper into what can be and what could be The what ifs and mere possibilities The congratulations and bittersweet salutations The false hopes and can't cope Of being with someone That isn't your second heartbeat. Memories. Grasping at straws, fragmented. The keen remembrance. I remember...

It begins with a light stab. A constant reminder of who's in control and who isn't.  Let's me be awakened with boss like qualities of urgency with no employment, deadlines but no place to go. Then it begins to sizzle. Sizzle like fire acid rain down the curvatures of what holds me together.  But I'm not together. Here, I am a jumbled mess of confusion, a chaotic place of nerve endings and muscle fibers begging for rest. Do I dare to stop? Do I dare to state that I am not done with this life (nor the next) so I must simply just enjoy what has been given to me. This is my place. Not a resting place. Not a place begging for a wired hangar to be anchored on a glossy doorknob, shining of beautiful welcomes and scents of candles within. No. This is something new, entirely. This is my place. A place where lightning shoots through the neck and electrifies my insides. This is a place where I drag my feet and droop when I wince in subtle positio...

I am more than what meets the eye. Soul deep and waters instilled form a ripple of a wave,  thrashing into the abyss like brain stems enter cerebellum exit clever calculable characteristics and into Chuck Taylor's jeans and a tee more than denim and sneakers more than poetic meanderings. I am more than what meets the eye Spiritual newness and cultural edifice pounding life after death and life into death like not holier than though loveliness I am more than meets the eye. Dare to see? Dare to capture and captive me? Dare to look beyond skin color and ethnicity? Dare to become less stereotypes and more of my type where lines shift into invisibility? I am more than meets the eye. -b.r.rivera #30in30 Poem 24 of 30

Reach out and tell me  how many stars are in the sky. Count 1-2-3-4 and realize you cannot count that high. Reach out and tell me do solar flares gravitate brilliance Squint to see its hues of variation and realize its beyond your resilience. Reach out and tell me can a thousand moons tug a war at beauty Follow its map through orbits and realize it's only God's duty. Reach out and tell me can a blanket of darkness sparkle in such shine? Silently whisper a breathless affirmation and realize you too, can be divine. -b.r.rivera Poem 23 of 30, April 2012 #30in30 

Stay a little while longer, he would say Each breath closer to the nape of my neck Fingers move more in on the grounds before play Erogenous, the zones in which he dares to trek Come a little closer, he simply wishes Movements inching across broad horizons Suddenly, a captive to warm kisses Unable to move from what sleek cautions Relax a little more, he softly commands Detangling nerve muscle and tendons gripped in stress Rub softer and deeper in skilled mahogany hands Lift a shirt here, unbutton there...Monotonous undress. In eyes that saw me so beautifully and divinely clothed, His only desire to see another check mark disrobed. -b.r.rivera #30in30 Poem 21 of 30 A Shakespearean Sonnet.  Fixed form of 3 quatrains, 1 couplet with abab, cdcd, efef gg.

This one particular man stands as prolific in my mind. Something about how the wild bird doesn't feel sorry for itself even in its frozen state. How secretly a broken wing challenges the raw Rocky-esque like stature the creature has. Screaming Adriiaaannnn!!!! with blackened eyes and sweat glistening from silken feathers. I don't know if I believe in such things. Here. Now. Sitting in chronic pain, barely able to move injured disks that stab burn stink in prolific meanderings. I mean, who can call their self an orange fiery flamed bird, beaten down by life and spit out in graves, turned to ash only to rise again? I am not that bird. That quiet, beaked, songstress. Attempting to flutter bloodied bashing's against a steel cage, minuscule perforations of seed scattered unto the recreated soil that can't fool earth. Self pity. Woe is me. The woe is me mentality framed in photographs where flight leaves the orbs of my eyes and ...

they miss the spirituality of the trees. the faint whisper of breath in oxygenated richness, the firm application of smoothness eloquently divine on the skin's surface. they miss the impartial breeze hitting blades of chloro-filled to the brim excitement of buds and the promise of another day. there's a reminder. a dancing metamorphosis barely young enough to hold unto the quaint swivel of the bark inching towards its cocoon, fluttering on the thin line of greatness. in the blink of an eye dismissed by smog ridden darkness electric buzz of cars and the flight of Starbucks cups filled to the brim of nothing, caffeinated the rush go go go, swiftly toes graze over grass enticingly as elusive engine drones to forget the brilliance of the sky. -b.r.rivera 12 if 30, April 2012 #30in30

My plants are dying. Some wither by the wayside. Others, destined in their own chlorophyll psychedelic mindfuck reach out to the Heavens and are Hell bent on finding the sustenance of the sun. I wonder if its the soil. Mixed parts with fertilizer and the such but we all know the grass is greener on the other side. Probably sunnier there too. Warm. The kind of weather where women flaunt their parasols and gloved white hands, pearls dancing off the sunglasses of the husbands that mow just near the picket fence. Maybe its too much water. leaves are perkier with just enough bounce, sturdy to the prickly fuzzy knees of bees. At least the lady bugs enjoy them. They seem to surround themselves near waxy goodness polka dots and dance trots to and fro the emptiness of withered hope. Couldn't be the roots. Oh, God...not the roots. Mind as well rip up the entire earth that surrounds them, throw them in the air and let the silken strands fall where they may. invisi...

She's a shell, you know. Some sort of fat humpty dumpty look a like skin un-kissed by the warmth of the sun. She's never seen what its like to allow the dimples to careen into deep valleys whiten the glazed over eyes of youth in almost porcelain enamels challenge the hurried hours in a curl of a moist lip. who knows what enters the mind at the middle of the playground dust and dirt kicked up to the pressed starchiness and itchiness of stockings. A reminder of delicate legs and shapely hips, bursting out to enter adolescence but pulled back in ribbons and plaits worn in her time. they scream at her, you know. some kind of words learned from their environment where the mother is a bitch from handing the daddies their plates cold the father is a motherfucker from a stain of red on a collar the dog is a shitter from a pound where only mixed breeds die and the child still lays in the womb as audio obscenities blast auto-tune in its fetal po...

Had I known. Had I simply known. Had I looked into a crystal ball, eyes glowing all ablaze see the fuzzy memories ahead the future in a tell tale haze- I would have run. Run. Run so fast and so sweet I would have become the breeze A whisper of what is to come, I would have shaped this earth into ease Run so fast and gliding to the soil A moment borrowed from the past Tell the future me it was all a mistake and dreams do not last. Had I known. If I simply known. -b.r.rivera

We're all stories in the end. An afterthought to memories sticky residue formed by the cerebellum and ancient experiences. I remember this life as simply as the next adorned with what ifs,and sad maybe's, undesirable truths and rude awakenings. I could of had it all. That promised laugh, That joyful tear, That wrinkled smile. An afterthought to memories sticky residue formed by the cerebellum and ancient experiences. This road is not what it seems. I received advice a long time ago; choose the path less traveled and diverge often from the foothills and valleys peaking in sunset and light, shadows and darkness, earth and Heaven's above. I was supposed to be happy. Bring life to whatever was dead; the constant resurrection of soul stirring eras, being told and retold many seasons ago. For it was glory. Glory to be the present unwrapped, a child sprung forth of its mother's womb entangled in a cord and cut loose of any ties except ...

Push. Broken walls and shove into shattered dreams. Glass strewn across paced feet. Disrupt any clear thinking and Dissolve any hope of the future. Wasted tears, Wasted years. Push. Shout out into screams and yells Harsh tones and echoed Wedding bells Photo memories thrown into a flame Smoke filled air, a cigarette to blame. Push. Shake the vibrating truth Have misery seat itself in lies that are mute Dare to speak living in enclosed walls Feel nothing in skin, emotionally starved. Push. Shove. Push away have no clearance for embrace Shove me again, to the arms That will take. Push. -b.r.rivera

You invade me. There is no hidden offbeat path where I can dust myself off from rubble and shattered dreams. Bury myself from conflicted wounds and organized chaos that inevitably surrounds me. I wave a white flag. Simply surrender to the noise created from empty graves, beckoning scythe and Hail Mary's fingers approaching forehead, rosary laid to rest in heartless coffins. You are here. You hear no bugle horn calling its falling back, no wave of retreat into the dusk falling over the horizon. I have no place to go, no place to hide, no place to run Only a dream of what simple freedom felt like before the day disrupted cadence entered my life. -b.r.rivera

I'm slipping in it Tumbling Fumbling awkward crumbling mumbling Unknowingly Shifting and lifting Gratifying and Satisfying Denying and Crying Laughing while hoping Wishing while kissing Utterly just f a l l i n g in love. Where the fuck in the midst of this Am I supposed to stand in love? -b.r.rivera #24of30 #30in30

Who's got me When I need to unplug the electric idiosyncratic bullshit of the world above down low Who's got me in deep valleys and shadowed paths when growls and snares smell blood, fresh which they entrap Who's got me if a net is cast for safety and not a soul to hold it laced fabric, a web a 50 star flag on a coffin bugle calls/fold it El fin, the end. Who's got me? Who's got me? Who has me? -b.r.rivera #22 of 30 #30in30

He said I lost my spice. The kind that metaphorically exists when little girls become sweet and enter puberty for their round hips and razor sharp tongues. My oomph. My electric glow invisible in orbs, its aurora tingling into goose bump nerve endings. My je ne sais quoi, the essential me that categorically bursts unevenly, its disruption a force that kept scientists mad in the lab. He said I lost my              self my dark being thrust down a deep rabbit hole where I was much muchier. He said I lost a part of the x factor the human chromosome of me, drowned in nothing-less genes misplaced in a million of blood cells. He said I lost my spice my oomph je ne sais quoi x factor. In a time reserved from point A to point B I wonder where the muchness was taken to derive at the result of x - c ? -b.r.rivera-taylor 16 of 30 #30in30