Seas

The waves of the sea

crash by your pale feet,

a gentle touch, teasing

a stronger future grip.

-

Someday, I knew it would take it all away.

-

You’d always visit there at sundown

And stay until the moon

At last had fully bloomed.

-

I would sit alone and watch,

isolated for a moment

from the lonely inside of my room.

The smoke from the chimneys

of a thousand new factories

would be picked up by the tide

and delivered to my door.

-

Each time I tried to leave the house,

I’d be blocked in, suffocating,

choking for hours on what

those dim lights had delivered.

-

On nights with heavy rain,

your rhythmic breathing turned to steam,

fogging up the windows.

Headphones still tight, you’d turn your back to me.

-

Signs were silently placed, and quietly noticed.

When bringing up pains, you would shrink and try to hide.

My presence overbearing, I went to bed alone,

hearing fragments of your voice crackling through the phone.

-

As time passed, spring’s flowers wilted

and Winter’s icy grip would tighten.

The sea, never frozen still, matched the smokestacks

and their spew.

-

You would dance on the sands, and I would watch

longing to move from the spider’s web that I was stuck in.

-

My cold hands clasped yours that night,

and the car ride was silent

other than the sound of bumps beneath the tyres.

-

When I woke the next morning,

a thorn was in my side.

Your note was there, folded so neatly

that I stopped before reading.

-

There was a scratching in my brain,

late nights blasted with the sounds of machines,

your blood was on the hands of my ignorance

and it was too late to clean them.

-

An image of you

gnawing at my mind.

Cold covers at night: a reminder of all failings.

-

Not a word to be said,

space itself was out of orbit

and silk felt sharp to the touch.

-

They found your sodden body

with bloated, rotting skin

The protective ring I had

tried to form around you

was shattered,

You had fallen underneath it.

I lay on the sand

screa

ming fo

r weeks, limbsnumb wa

iting for yOu to return.

Moon by the sea, refl

Ectionsofabrokenmirror, cold hand’s touch, an empti

ness, a hollo

wchestwormsintheBloodstream,no more breathing-sodde

nskinbarelyholdingiNitsplaceTHESOUNDOFAMACHINEAme ss whic

hWonTcleanupgentlebumpsbeneaththewheels,handscrawling, stillred, erodinglungscorrosionwormsonmyplatethewavestheycrashthewavestheycrashthewavestheycrashthewavestheycrash

-The waves, they crash — a ceaseless sound, pounding.

-

The sea took it all away

The sea took it all away

The sea took it all away

You rest still on its sharpest wave.

The sea took it all away

The sea took my face away

The sea took it all away

And the waves still keep crashing.

-

The sea took it all away,

The waves still crash, unknowing.

-

Forever, the unchanging sea.