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Alijah Rivers Poem
You aren’t
a burden,
you are
a blessing.
Copyright © Alijah Rivers | Year Posted 2025
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Alijah Rivers Poem
I can’t imagine
how painful it is to
be God.
Trying your hardest
to make a beautiful painting,
only to have the characters
you created complain and
mock the world around
them.
Why does God let bad things
happen to good people?
Pretty sure you’d walk
away from the canvas too
if it spat back and criticized
you.
But perhaps,
in his silence,
he waits,
hoping we’ll learn to
appreciate the
masterpiece.
And after he
suspects we’ve endured
enough punishment, he’ll return
to add an additional layer
of paint.
We call these added colors
miracles, and they renew our
dwindling faith.
Copyright © Alijah Rivers | Year Posted 2025
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Alijah Rivers Poem
March Comes In Like A Lion
Dandelion dance
in the palm of my
hand; a gentle
bloom.
I love
my birthday
flower.
Copyright © Alijah Rivers | Year Posted 2025
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Alijah Rivers Poem
The day after my suicide,
I fell in love with the woman
whose photograph I keep on
my nightstand.
The day after my suicide,
I forgave my father
for everything he was
and everything he
failed to be.
The day after my suicide,
I saw my mother beyond
her addictions and for the
broken little girl I was always
too angry to picture her
of being.
The day after my suicide,
I saw my dog and I appreciated
the way she ran through the yard
so freely.
The day after my suicide,
I saw my brother and we
were throwing rocks down
by the creek.
The day after my suicide,
I saw my sister and she
was teaching me how to
fix the chain on my
bicycle.
The day after my suicide,
I pictured Van Gogh laying
in that field of sunflowers with
his guts spilling out and I wondered
if in that moment he viewed himself
as artistic or driven.
The day after my suicide,
I realized that none of that
really mattered.
Because the day after my suicide,
I saw myself for the very first time.
And I loved myself unconditionally.
And I wished. Oh, how I wished
that I could have waited. Just one
more day.
Copyright © Alijah Rivers | Year Posted 2026
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Alijah Rivers Poem
In a rather egotistical
and pathetic attempt
to immortalize myself,
in something I lost,
everything.
And now that I’ve burned
all of my bridges and I’m drowning,
the only thing I have left
to do is work.
And it's not working.
And the only ones
praising my work
are little kids,
the same age I was
when I broke everything.
Lucky me.
I watch them do
the same foolish things,
reaching for pointless dreams,
immortalizing themselves
for no one and nothing.
What I wouldn’t do
to have something,
and what I wouldn’t give
for something
worth saying.
Empty words
look prettier
when they’re
written in blood.
And trust me,
it’s dripping
straight out of
my pen tip
and into my lungs.
I wish that
instead of pneumonia
I had amnesia.
Maybe then,
I could forget about
all of this.
Copyright © Alijah Rivers | Year Posted 2025
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Alijah Rivers Poem
Isn’t it odd?
All of the little things
that remain in our
little brains?
One day, you’ll
be walking down the
street, just minding your
own business, when suddenly
you’ll stop.
A sight,
A sound,
A scent,
A memory,
Something you have
never seen, heard, smelt,
or even experienced before
will catch your incomplete attention
so completely.
And send you to
the most magical of
places.
Something from your
childhood,
Something from the
small town you drove through
last autumn.
Something from that
department store shelf
at that street corner you
never thought you’d actually
go to. But then you did.
Something from
a bad day.
Something from a
good one.
All of that energy,
all of that time,
and still, I can’t
put a name to what
that feeling is.
Nostalgia?
No, it goes
deeper than
that.
Much, much
deeper.
After a bit, you’ll
wonder a while,
and then you’ll simply
move on.
Maybe all it is was
grief expressed purely.
Because living
in a world where
things are so temporary
is a bittersweet thing.
Better times,
worse times,
doesn’t matter.
It all
sticks
around.
Copyright © Alijah Rivers | Year Posted 2025
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Alijah Rivers Poem
Behind every person’s soul,
a universe quietly resides.
And I still find it strange
that despite that cosmic brilliance,
we circle back to fixate
on surface-level, fleeting things.
Things that could never touch
the depth of our own true radiance.
We never notice our own
beauty—isn’t that beautiful?
Copyright © Alijah Rivers | Year Posted 2025
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Alijah Rivers Poem
The feel of a touch,
the sound of a cry,
the joy of hello,
the sorrow of
goodbye.
We entangle, we combine
we fall apart -
but in the end,
we get up and
we try, try, try,
to form a connection
that doesn't end in absence.
It all ends
for those already absent.
Be present,
if not for others,
then for yourself.
Copyright © Alijah Rivers | Year Posted 2025
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Alijah Rivers Poem
Leukemia boys and
Leukemia girls wave
in hospital volunteers,
as the angels wave
them away.
What is
love?
Beyond
an overpriced
ambulance ride,
and an unnecessary
hospital stay?
The most beautiful things:
summer sweat,
and Rome after
rain.
Inside,
a child draws
a yellow sun
with trembling fingers.
The IV, taped
down like it’s trying
to hold him
there.
Forced positivity.
A heart full of
apathy.
I see that
same world you try
to see with substance sober,
and I’ll be the first to tell you—
it isn’t a
blessing.
God has a
hand-grenade
smile, and it’s
hard to find
the grace
in that.
There’s
6 dead, 4 wounded,
and one on the
way.
What an
unimpressive
collection.
Copyright © Alijah Rivers | Year Posted 2025
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Alijah Rivers Poem
Nature is calling,
your hips swaying.
A light snowfall takes
place in a winter
breeze.
The footprints of a doe
and her fawn grace the
land in fragments.
Broken bits of
grass poke out
from where they
were last seen, in
brown, sticky
patches.
A moose,
a rabbit,
a raccoon—
resting, rejuvenating,
saving their strength.
Birds chirp,
wolves howl.
I close my eyes
and know I’ve
made it.
Did you make it
to Italy, sparrow?
For I am yet to
make it there.
I wish
you well.
Copyright © Alijah Rivers | Year Posted 2025
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