Your eyes burned and danced between
First blue then green, then blue
The driftwood fires, beachfront pyres,
Your essence clashing too.

Cracking, burning, twisting with
The knowledge close at hand
The truth within the salted seas
That lap and brush the sand.

I had placed you there and you
Like sun-bleached ocean wood
Went willing trapped up in my grip
Although you understood...

The mark those waters left upon
Your brittle, scorched treebones
Your twisted fingers skyward
With your back against the stone.

And somehow I, though conflicted, danced
Around you both between
Consuming and devouring
Both fallow earth and sea.

He is the tumultuous ocean,
The twisting, rolling sea
That feigns a certain gentleness
Until its rage breaks free

So vast and so unending
And limitless in worth
I took him once for granted
As I wandered through the surf.

Without the tumulus ocean
Without its rolling seas
Without the tide that tosses me
And never sets me free

The arid, fallow earth would crack
Beneath my burning feet
Reminding me of which I lost
And dried up with the heat

But salt leaves me to languish
No sweetness he can quench
Time will only tell from here
If love can fill this trench.

These words just deposit
Like sand on the beach;
Remain on this tongue
As unspoken speech.

They stretch towards someone
Whose ears have gone deaf;
Unable to know
Their tones on my breath.

Their eyes will not see
All that has passed
Since the day that they ceased
And breathed out their last.

Their presence won't touch us
Like waves on the shore
Reaching for something
Not here anymore.

I never wanted you to be
A picture on a glowing screen
Each word I speak of you could be
The soft words of a eulogy.

I wanted to knife my tongue today
To spit it out and throw away
I crooned your name in gentle lilt
Like a hand trailing over silk.

I thought it would choke me then
And it would drown me once again
I held my breath and really tried
To keep you locked away inside.

Instead the floodgates lost their clasp
And I could only stop and gasp
As it all encompassed me
I sunk down deep beneath the sea.

Ocean eyes I do recall in
Each return in early fall
Holding tight to the belief
In each gold arc, and scarlet leaf...

That my dream would be your dream
Instead of just a memory.
But all that was is nothing now
And all this is will not match how
It could have been, it should have been
And never will it be again.

The dam I built against the dream
Found me today in tiny stream
In rivulets I let you through
The person that I had once knew

I broke the surface to breathe
And felt the moisture take its leave
Pent you up behind the wall
Until the rain decides to fall.