this is how we survive without living:
on diets of choked-down words
and blood from bitten tongues,
drinking sun that blisters open lips.
we are the ones who taste heaven
by killing pieces of ourselves,
the mortal realizations of all things
romanticized into tragedies.
when we walk through gardens
the roots of trees tug at our feet,
the soles sink into the earth;
still, we cannot walk below the ground.
when we skim flat rocks over black waves
we awaken the fairer sirens
who dwell in fog like the stones we throw
and sing our bodies into mist.
but if we learn to tread water long enough,
our bare toes will kick up the dirt
and unearth the skeletons of shipwrecks;
these, at last, will sail us home.