Picture Me, Picturing You

picture me, picturing you

through a lens no one has seen you through before

loving you as you are

not fasting for who you could become 

my faith in you is not drained by your mistakes 

but simply built up by the certainty 

that you will try not to make the same ones

more than once 

you understand effort

picture me, picturing you

as if your grey days only complement 

the shadows of the lightning

in our atmosphere

not create an absence of color

we all have a scarcity of the rainbow inside of us

I love you still

picture me, picturing you

as a distant star in the 

midnight sky

you have a way about you that

makes your simplicity magnified 

you’re an iceberg that seems so faint 

from above the deep

but is miles long and acres wide 

from underneath the barrier of sea level

to the world you may seem 

like just a floating speck of a 

withering light way out in the universe 

but I have been sucked in by the aptitude 

of the flames of who you really are 

I could never put you out 

picture me, picturing you 

as the first rush of the autumn breeze

creating a chill along the outskirts of my body

only to find that once I am invited inside

I will be heated to the core

you are not as you seem

picture me, picturing you

as the blood pounding through 

the streets under my skin

that keep me alive

there is always the panic that 

a vein could close up overnight 

or my heart could leave me lonely 

you are the oxygen

that rushes in to my lungs

like a gang of wild elk 

and overpowers any other force

that could keep me from breathing

you keep your word

picture me, picturing you

as a full moon

in the dead of October 

sending a shiver of adrenaline 

up the nape of my neck

for you I am nocturnal 

like a wolf pinching a cigarette 

between its teeth

I fear drifting off in to a sleep

missing a moment of your thrill

now picture me

when my love comes to you

as a river running rampant 

never slowing down, never ceasing to flow

you are not sure from where the river begins 

all you need to trust is that 

it never runs out 


Riley Renee Boyer

Renee Boyer is a local of Lebanon, Tennessee. She graduated highschool from McClain Christian Academy, and she decided to continue her education at Cumberland University. She began her journey at Cumberland getting a degree in Business, but after being inspired by her Creative Writing teacher, Sandee Gertz, she decided to change her major and follow her dreams of being a writer. Both of her parents are creatively and musically inclined, so her interest in the arts is supported and encouraged by her family.

NOVUS Literary and Arts Journal
Lebanon, TN