Drink the Sea

I dived into the ocean and felt an alkali sting when it collided with my blood. A constant saline drip into my pores might cleanse my viens of empty, lost feelings.

I kicked and swam through deep, grey waters with only one wish: to be free. The waves sometimes struck me like a backhand to face, but I would not turn back to the dry, sandy shores I'd run away from.

Faced with a vastness and expansion beyond measurable compare, I proceeded despite quickly dwindling stamina. My skin burned as the sun reflected lightbeams off the clouds and stared at me. It was as if even the sun knew I would never find anything out here. But no open, briny wounds could hold me back.

Exhaustion and hopelessness seemed to set in deeper with every carefully calculated forward arm stroke towards a home I swore existed out here. My mouth became dry.

I sipped acrid water like I sipped your acrid words and waded. Three-hundred and sixty degrees later, I couldn't swallow for the drought that had once again inhabited my tongue. Plunging beneath the waves, I inhaled the brine of this cruel sea-- if only it would quench my thirst.

The sapor reminded me of the time I wiped your tears away and licked them off my fingers to see what real pain tasted like. It was then I relized that I had swam into the open waters with my eyes close. Upon opening them, I was merely a rock-skip away from the beach I had initially ventured from. And there was you, watching me intently, like you thought I would never come back.

[But I always come back.]