by Taylor Ryan Rivers

no matter how this ends it’s still love

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I.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎yeah baby you make me want to
cruise across the skyline arm out the window

my fingers in the clouds your feet up on the dash
pop the glove find a stash of sunshine on CD

maybe make a pit stop dead center of the storm
make out to the thunder cracking rain bonding

maybe make it straight past the atmosphere
make it to heaven having a hell of a time

you can have me however you want me from here
if this isn’t love I was never meant to know it

II.

you make me a breeze where a body should be
a thirst quenched with a kiss a smile a word
rain falls space fills while not a drop’s felt
your hair drenched nuzzled up against my neck

we’re unbreakable unstoppable sprawled out
in a way it’s hard to tell who’s holding the wheel
who’s to blame for swerving crashing back to earth
right here in these lyrics is where I’m meant to be

III.

you make me a bed of roses blooming in war time
death blotches the dew blanketing the petals all

around your feet you’ll find what remains of me
fallen from the sky asking what use do I have

for another dream another meal other than
maybe we’ll last this time maybe we deserve

to make this enclosed lake feel a river’s caress
maybe then this little ceaseless cycle of car crashes

can at least wait I mean what more do I need
to know maybe this couldn’t work out in the

IV.

no matter how this ends it’s still love
the kind where you keep running through my mind

while the wax melts on repeat and the sun
shines lines in the sediment of ancient sea levels

some to the reservoir some to the sea current
some waves entropy still can’t separate

all signs of what we meant to each other
one more kiss one more word just one more

V.

you make me evaporate to light the sky blue
contrasting against your aquamarine constancy
claw the cordillera one more time before I rise
despite past transgressions the dust floating
waiting to re-congeal with the hum of earth

you make me get behind the wheel again
and credit the natural world with human feeling

you make me bitter just the concept of
you makes me

‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎

© Taylor Ryan Rivers

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Taylor Ryan Rivers (he/him) is a Stage Manager, Writer, and Actor based out of the San Francisco Bay Area. He graduated from the University of Southern California, and wrote the narrative podcast Jayden Jones: Private Eye. His work has appeared in Palaver Arts Magazine, Gyroscope Review, Sierra Nevada Review, and 45th Parallel.

You can find him on Instagram: @riverstaylor08.

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