Ocean Dreams

"I need to breathe the sea." I said.
He said "That sounds a lot like drowning".

And I laughed because, it is.
It's like drowning backwards. 

When miles of land become a prison. Enclosing. Suffocating. Torture. 

When you can't breathe without the taste of salt and water in your lungs; the wild ocean winds controlling your hair. When it's gotten into your bloodstream - the rise and fall of the tides an addiction you cannot shake. 

"Almost," I said . 

S. 

{Photo via: We Heart It}

Joy -

“It was her habit to build up laughter
out of inadequate materials.”

John Steinbeck 

{Photo via: We Heart It}

cardiac arrest.

the heart is a many-ridged thing

not two curved pieces folding into each other
it has nooks that no one’s ever told you about
            it shrinks and then explodes
                        with something thick and awful and necessary.

it has valves and doors and windows
and you crawled in from underneath the floorboards
            you poisoned the water
                        you hid yourself in a crevice.

you hid where my fumbling fingers could not pry you loose
            where I could not rip your leeching flesh from me
                        without first tearing away fingernails full of my own vein and tissue.

my heart pumped you through me
until you became part of the system; thick and awful and necessary
            until even my toes needed you to survive.

and that’s how it went for minutes or years
            I don’t know
but one day you slipped out
            you creeped out from the chimney or the front door
                        you left and you never asked, never told me where you’d go.

not here though. 

            not in that unreachable place in that corner of my heart.
                        not in the place you ruined inside me.

you tore those veins and tissue fibers when you left
and all your poison turned sour
            seeping down until even my toes
                        ached with a rigid bitterness
                                I can't get free from. 

S. 

{Photo: Adriana Petit Flickr}

>>>

"I think we're just gonna have to be secretly in love with each other and leave it at that."

Margot Tenenbaum

{Photo: Vassilvasilic Flickr}

say sorry.

you spilled into my life and made a messy thing of my heart. 
and i don't quite know how to forgive you, 
because you ruined me
in an irrecoverable way. 

i have another boy i'm supposed to be writing about now, 
but he's not the one i keep finding fragments of, under my skin. 
and, still, he's never held me like you did. 
i don't think he can. 

i don't know how to forgive. 

S.

{Photo via: Tumblr} 

deep underneath //

toe to tile
backbone to barren floor, frigid -
chills to clammy skin
a gravity that sinks deep into the gut

you are drawn to low things
fallen fruit and dirt between the cracks
down and damned,
                                 already

and you are made from darkness
low voices clinging to cigarette stained walls,
you found comfort in your riven body being
far beneath brainwaves and scorching eyes

a safe haven in the fault lines that run
from the refrigerator to the stove
and in the smell of alcohol and Clorox mixed
all pulling you further in

the ones on foot can trample you, still
but you are a million cutting shards (broken)
this is why you chose the ground
flat-spined, invisible

down and damned,
                                already

S. 

{Photo: Sbiaditoricordo Flickr}

Feelings Won.

He was drunk and clinging to me in the way I hate but am flattered by,
whispering nothing consequential. Nothing he'd remember in the morning.
Being pulled away by jealous arms
that were never quick enough to stop a small-kiss or soft touch. 

I couldn't stop the corners of my mouth from moving when he told me
in all his drunken glory that he likes me. He really likes me. 
I hate - as I've always hated - when someone can make me 
do something I don't mean to. Even smile.

It isn't fair because he's drunk and I'm sober enough 
to know better than messy words and ear kisses.
Sober enough to not let it get to me,
but it does. He does. 

(I hate this).

S. 

{Photo: Sea Swallow Me Flickr}

Unspoken.

"And how, when walking down the street he placed his palm against my neck in a way that I've spent every day since hoping some other man will do without me having to ask."

Meg Fee

{Photo: Valentina Castro}

Prison --

I could be happy in his arms but God knows I'm not strong enough to leap to them.
Not with a heart weighed heavy as mine.

It shouldn't be this difficult, I know that. But there are a few things wrong with me.
I am made up of a thousand walls, and only a few doorways - barricaded now. And guarded.

He doesn't ask for much, just for something real.
But I am the lie behind false fronts; offering nothing for his troubles.

I hope only that my heart can soften before he gives me up.
Or, stays ice right through the walk away.

How did I get so broken?

S. 

{Photo: Adriano Sodré Flickr}

Will you still have me?

I have loved before, but it didn't feel like this.
I have kissed before, but it didn't burn me alive.

Jodi Picoult

{Photo via: We Heart It}