If I were an ocean, I'd tsunami.
I'd crash at you, rise up fiercely with froth dripping from my wicked tongue.
I'd lick at your feet a tongue so cold, you'd hop and run like a threatened hare.
I'd send my driftwood to scratch you and then my salt to burn it
And then when I calmed down, I settle to a grey-blue lulling you to see the infinite beauty and power and wrath of me. And you'd feel small as a speck of sand.
If I were an ocean I'd take starfish and send them hurtling towards you like ninja stars.
I'd grab your ankles with my seaweed limbs and drag you under, just for one moment longer than you thought you could survive.
And bubble up the back of your legs like a devils tickle as you shot to the surface to gasp.
If i were an ocean.
If I were a universe I'd take my neutron stars and line them in a row so they spin you back to a time where hearts were whole
Well, when my heart was anyway.
If I were a universe I'd take my sun and my moon and I would cover them with a mourning veil of shimmery ivory and you would see the world like eyes of a woman in grief.
I would put you on a planet where raining glass comes sideways and I would give you an umbrella made of ozone.
I would put you on a star and make you catch the wishes thrown to you.
Catch them all, in a bucket of diamonds.
I would have you grant them all. All but one.
The one I wished. If I were a universe I'd make you ride that lonely wish of mine down the current of the Milky Way,
Feeling its tentacles of hope underneath your feet like old mans slippers.
If I were a universe I hold all your breathe in glass speck of light and watch as it chased the speed of sound down the darkness.
And if I were a mountain I'd turn all my streams away
So you could feel the gift of thirst.
I crumble into dust as you dug your heels into me
Trying to climb higher but ending so far below.
If i was a mountain, I'd wrap the wind around my vocal cords and sing to you and eerie song that would haunt your mind and make you think of loves you'd lost.
I'd give you mountain stretch marks.
Itchy places to remind you of when the sea was your lover.
I'd take my poison ivy to your skin.
So sultry she would climb like a lover's thin trailing fingernails
down
     your
           spine.
If I were tree I'd be a weeping willow.
I'd hang my wounded limbs over the river that is your regrets.
If I were a tree I'd shade you from the blazing sun.
You'd crave me then.
You'd fall asleep in my lap.
If I were a tree I'd gift you a hundred acorns...
And let none of them take root. If I were a tree.
If I were a tree you'd climb me to take shelter from the wolves.
I'd take you into my strong arms
And you would understand what courage is.
What refuge is.
What need is.
I'd stroke that glistening wolf to keep him at your feet.
And paint your toes with sap so he drools with the anticipation of licking you.
And if i were that tree you'd feel safe within.
I'd blow a wind to stroke your face and
And sooth you with the sounds of leaves and you would sleep.
Then I'd send that wolf away because you'd know me then.
But I am a woman.
And what I can do is make you see me as I walk away,
pull away
sneak away
crawl away.
I am a woman and I can be the emptiness I leave you.
I am a woman, an ocean, a universe, a mountain, a forest.
I am a woman who is the empty fragile places where I used to be.
But I am a woman
And you will remember me.
...You will remember me.

sahn
5/19/14