The ocean of dreams
  
The old man was still in his bed; someone said, is he dead?
No, not yet he says I dream of seagulls flying over the ocean.
Once I was a dolphin, my sons and daughters live there,
Now they are in the bay of Cascais, waving for me to join them.
They need a father figure.
Years ago, he swam ashore, and kind people gave him a suit.
Now he walks like Hercules Poirot, small careful steps.
He dreams of the vast ocean he knew so well, swam alongside cargo ships.
It was a fun time but not a place to write poetry.
My dear children, he says, I will join you later when I write the poem.
Of everlasting love.
Is he dead?  Someone whisper, no, he is only dreaming of the sea.
He knew so well.

midnight diamonds, winds in the south, sun traveled southbound,
    you see, you lingered in some subtle guises when you’re mine, yet you’re gone.

   the stars stud my heavens, hot and flickering, the wind embraces me - these spark some painful thoughts i never told anybody. these remind me that somewhere out there i too reappear in your mind for a while, and this is when i beg the most:

for you never to forget my gentle feelings, and my timid cold fingers.
    i know at best i could be only your afterthought, my dear, and i am learning to live with this, i am learning to live with this fact that you’re letting me slip away.

         you’re with me ‘till this ends, ‘till i have transcended the agony of naive wonderfulness. and i can live with your ghost, these ruins of relics. you’re with me, my sweetheart, ‘till i’m mended and be brave enough to open up to a new soul.

some days the sunset is permanent, it's foreseeable.
it's all soiled with a deep amber, the skies, the pink walls,
the long shadows on the ground.
city smells in the air, soft bergamot scent from his black hair,
november rain.

in those days you are bereft, it's foreseeable.
love is remembered and withered, out of the scene, and tears are no more.
his trembling sigh a lament,
your hot tears a passion so fervent,
your doleful detriment.

they said life is beautiful,
but you have tasted heaven once, and they haven't,
and you believed it was something inside of him,
has awakened something carnal and ancient,
yet you knew he wasn't of heavens,

only one of the transience fragilities of earth,
but this was paradise to you.

you wanted to believe life is beautiful,
but his moan was a mourn to all the lighter things
you have lost in life,
and for that, your happiness is not easy.
you lost something in this life and it's found until it's no more.

you knew this, despite a paradise was transient, and colored of flame,
it's a paradise, still.

life is beautiful but it grows blue, grey, crimson, pink.
and some days it's a permanent sunset,
in those days there are shadows of heaven on earth, you see,
his shadows lengthening on the ground
bleeding into the lights, everywhere.

when i wanted to write about you
    it seemed as if i couldn't find any coherent
  words to delineate what it was to love and be loved,
and all the delicate and light feelings that came with it.

and i wasn't sure whether words would
   ever do the justice to what you gave me, what i had then,
and i was thinking of something fragile, and beautiful and tormenting,
              such as how you had me loved you always, and you loved me sometimes.

crush, crush, crushed,
   it creaked, faltered, and died.

this is how i see you when i don't dream,
    you were inside of me, and you were, and i can sense how you're now just a shadow
      of someone that you used to be.
   and i loved you, and probably still, it doesn't matter.
sometimes love is just as beautiful as abandonment and self-loathing.

do you believe in fate, my moonchild?
   this is a third fate, a third my sadness,
       a third your wilderness.
and you were in my way, and i was just starting to play with hearts and aces,
  in the crammed bus downtown, you made a plea, you knew how to lull a maiden like me, you said
    and i said i wouldn't fall for those secret rendezvous,
and this is how low i could go for you.

         ah, and you decided to turn your back from the wrong,
i was in the wrong, you put me in the wrong, but you wanted to be right,
   and this time, you gently wiped it off of my *******,
i shook, and i wept, that was far from what i deserve, but i never had something as gentle as those hands,
    and you said it was your fault, and you wanted nothing to do with me,
  you said:
                   you are my dark future, and for that, i have paid dearly in life.

you prayed for me to be strong, but i have always been,
     then you prayed for me to find someone who could love me the way you only could, you knew i'd need it,
   but that was no longer something that i long for
because i get hollow, and it doesn't matter, and i am no longer searching for it,
  and i had you anyway.

      you shouldn't worry about me, i am not getting somebody
  in your place anytime soon, i never said
i want it, i don't want it
   i need you, and i don't need you
and i just think of you a lot, my beloved moon,
and i think of all the ways i could be braver instead,
            like i told you the last time.
      
  affection is one thing, and love is another,
but passion is in the core,
     and the core is hollowed out, passion has been burnt out as i lost you
        and this is what i've been left with, my florencita
   and this is how i see you.

and i find your dreams are troubled again, our mother,
      our saviour, ave regina
  but you put on a composed smile, little darling,
bright and clear,
like skies in june, goddess of athena

oh - i know, i know, you shed tears too, you found your hair is falling out!
your limbs are limping, and you don't have any tickets to escape the town,
                  to the motherland, or the seven seas, where you belong
           and look, now, we are fighting the same war
this massive isolation, deafening silence,
                       repugnant confusion
  see, where's your god now?
                            you sighed to the heavens although you know it's wrong

we are in the same isolation,
       i am with my quilt and quill
               and you are with the moon, your man of dreams,
    comfort of homes
          and the world is frail, darling, it's on fire
and this is what i see:
            things diminishing,                   disheartening

and despite the tiffs, despite the madness,
            i'll tell you this: you have all that i want.
   take it all, i said, risk it all
and he did risk it all, and for you, it was never an afterthought,
                         and that is something that i foresaw but i was never prepared for

you have sadness as big as the world, sitting on your shoulders,
     and i have mine fits perfectly in my grasp,
        but i want yours
          i don't know everyone's battle zone, in my whole life i only know mine
                 but what you have is something that was a part of mine, whose body and soul was pervading my body, who owns this poetry, fire of my frigid, frail soul
and i want your sadness so big that it destroys me,
     and so we can always forget what we have in hands

            and i wish you well,
     i never wished you to know the feelings that need to be felt in order to write this