A few cards are following me,
jumping into my hand
every time I touch a deck.
After all of the calamity
(thank you, three, for the warning),
these three pesky swords
have turned themselves upside down,
like getting caught in an
illicit affair
capsizes a life. I see that they made
no purchase, have nothing
to hold them in my heart,
no latch, no fastener, and they arrived
by force, plunging in, as if my heart
were just some vessel holding water
instead of pumping blood, grief, anger, pain, and shame through my
entire system.
I see now that nothing holds them there.
The moment I lift my heart,
they will fall to the ground
in an empty, metallic clatter
About the Creator
Harper Lewis
I'm a weirdo nerd who’s extremely subversive. I like rocks, incense, and all kinds of witchy stuff. Intrusive rhyme bothers me.
I’m known as Dena Brown to the revenuers and pollsters.
MA English literature, College of Charleston
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More stories from Harper Lewis and writers in Poets and other communities.
Letter to my Daughter
You have a choice to make here: are you going to continue the cycle, or are you going to break it? Keeping your son away from me hurts him; there’s no question about that. I thought you were being hurt, and I was trying to protect you, not punish anyone when I kept your grandfather away from you. I have said that I was wrong and I am sorry, but there was never any malice involved.
By Harper LewisExclusive • 2 months ago
Comments (1)
This piece beautifully captures the raw, emotional process of release—how pain, once examined, loses its grip. The imagery of the reversed swords falling away is both haunting and liberating, a powerful metaphor for healing after heartbreak.