REVERB, with Samuel Johnstone

It's a language like birdsong sung in reverse, something beautiful and wrong -

perversely born from truths whispered through cracked walls. Listening to those echoes

that permeate the damaged souls until nothing but a shell remains.

Inside, a heartbeat, furious, hopeful and fearful, until

a stuttering blankness creeps forward, blanketing the sound to make way for

stillness, blood stiffening into tamed rivers where no ripples rebound on its surface.

The whispering shadows march on, piercing the air

except now, as the endless swarming sounds converge, they seem to say something new -

a promise, a vow, an oath. Still barbaric in its ceaseless noise, but with a pledge to protect, to hide.

---

You might remember Sam from his guest spot back in March! I've always loved writing poetry with Sam, be it collaborative like this and Cosmic Romanticism, writing to the same prompt, or just doing our own thing in the same room. He's one of my very best friends and I can't imagine life without him.

The first line of this poem is one that I've had in my drafts for, god, over a year at this point, and I was so happy to finally put it to use. I trusted Sam to deliver, and deliver he did. I hope you like what we came up with, I know I do.

~ C