Tacoma, Arizona

a villanelle, in which the rhyme scheme is ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA

The desert was like the dead.

Scorching hot in the fiery sunshine.

You were like a river that flowed through the underground and it was softer beneath the bottom unlike an ocean bed.

Out of all the things I could have said,

You could have been mine.

The only thing that was alive; the only thing that was not dead.

You re my desert flower where the water had led.

As I swam through the waters looking for the perfect rose, the desert flower was a sign.

A sign that to be alone was to live a tragic life and tread where no other had ever tread.

I’ve looked throughout the flower bed.

I took the narrow path down the thin line.

And I’ve laid many a soul down to rest instead.

I have finally realized that souls of many had bled.

Underneath the gunfire where souls could never have the contract unbind for the fiery sword of justice to forever dine.

Everything lay still and beauty had lay in the dead.

Everything was finely turned into the deserted river’s bed.

Where the road lay was the river’s line.

And that was all that was left forevermore unsaid.

And that was where the river had led.