lithedark

The sounds of the Sound filled my ears.

Standing upon broken shells and rocks, I could hear only the soft pounding of the waves and the crunch underfoot. The Sound, a deep dark bed that lay between me and distant twinkling lights, purred demurely. Off, not too far, a buoy flashed frantically its green light to welcome ships home. I had come for the same reason though I still had a ways to go.

I walked slowly from the crushed beach to the wooden pier. Over the water and out it took me; I recall the blinding lights above that chased the stars ever further. The breathless voice of the Sound was all I could hear over the soft thud of my boots and the simple patter of rain. In retrospect, I was hoping to chase away my demons. In retrospect, it worked. As I sit now in relative comfort miles from that pier, figuratively and literally, I ponder intently the grief of grieving there.

To give up, like I had, a piece of myself to be filled with such greater feelings of resolute apathy or spiteful ambivalence, was neither a trick of the head nor of the heart. I felt it forced upon me, in a way, that brought me to have little care for earthly concerns. Disconnected from my peers, my family, my friends, at the time mind you, I found myself for the first time embraced by someone new: myself. Reticent am I on the topic of self-loathing, for I find it a slope most-slippery and least-rewarding, but hither-to I had not seen fit to account for myself.

Life is and always will be, but I will not. Lasting only as long as my breaths, when the worms find me, I will be without care. The treats and barbs alike left in my wake will live only until the few that loved me have coughed their dying breaths. To this end, in this end, I find great solace. A dark calm that washed over me that night and bore me far away from discontent. Though I digress, it was an unlikely transformation borne of human sacrifice. You will kill one poet to raise another; I think he would be satisfied with the cost.

Much of my time was spent there weeping silently into the cold, salty wood of an otherwise nondescript pier in an otherwise nondescript port. The rain would bathe me, soak me, and leave me miserable and cold, yet cleansed. Cold wind would sting my faces and eyes and drive the rain into me until I had suffered just as much as I should.

With responsibilities shirked, obligations unfilled, relationships destroyed, love and hate alike quelled, and purpose vivified, I stumbled back to a warm bed. Sleep came next that lasted many years.

I am awake.

Through downpour I wake, ache
Turn ’round as if she, the sea, turned me
Expectant spectres bearing glorious geas
Tending to tend, perhaps, yearning to turn
I sleep, sleepless, despite or per lovely malice
Of course, in due cause of the best intentions

Sometimes you write the poem and sometimes the poem writes you. Thanks for reading.

Upon my wake, after spitting sand and water, I sat upright and turned my sights to the horizon. Brilliant golden streamers descended gracefully toward her, while she lay quivering beneath. Her complexion was cold and stoic as she refused the wind’s perpetual push; she was a flat plain of murky blue and I could not tear myself away. As the sunlight warmed my back and compelled me on, she stole my strength and forced me back, reeling, onto the sand. Ne’er I had a chance nor choice as she stole my breath away once and again.

Rising to my feet, I cowered as the freezing breeze stung my shins with sand and combed me with dust. I looked upon my ship, torn and broken on the rocks, and cursed she who had wrought my viduity. She, who had widowed me, stirred callously as I kneeled and wept, wetting the broken frame and returning salt to salt. Despite her brutal hand, I stood again and turned my back to her.

She had borne to me to this place of my rebirth; I turned my back to her and left the frozen beach.

A purple haze engulfed my ache,
A mistress so in-tune,
My lady bore my weight and wake,
Guided by fluorescent moon.

A shift and stir, from side to side,
And rolling underneath,
Her sweet embrace is gentle tide
Her whispers, just beneath.

Washed upon the solid ground,
I feel a calming breeze,
Despite the earth to which I’m bound,
She puts my mind to ease.

Thrown from ship, I’ve seen the sea,
And she has seen no less of me.