A lake is forgiving
it shields the swimmer from the contents of it's murky waters
It was a hot day
I was probably sunburned
My hair stuck to the back if my neck
I twirled a little, in my inner-tube
and tossed back my head
aimlessly gawking at the whirling sky
and loosed my grip.

As I slipped into the water
I was spinning like a top
I didn't know what way was up
It seemed like every direction
was infinite.
What if I kept going down?
Surely, I would drown.

But...what if I kept going down?

some can fill up rooms
with wet strings
of wet words
and they all splash around
with each other

noise
can be measured
and calculated
but there is no unit
for the dry absence
of sound

the shiny wonder of possibility
always prevails
over the reverberating
thud
of imminent disappointment

I've always liked brown eyes.
I guess they seem the most natural.
Yours were like mossy cross sections of a tree,
after it rained,
with ring upon ring of history.
Sometimes I would try to count them,
I doubt you ever noticed.
But all I could ever quantify
were all the ways
that you were too much for me
and I, too little for you.

I think we left
pieces of ourselves
together,
on satin pillowcases,
under our fingernails,
in that corner booth where the lighting, you said, made my face look like fresh snow.
I can feel those pieces of me
blinking patiently at yours
I think they are waiting.
I think they are wondering
when we'll come back.

Eight was my limit.
Anyway, I lost count at twenty five.
It wasn't my intention
What was my intention

Perhaps I thought it would all fade away gently
How one seems to forget their most vivid of dreams
and awakens, crestfallen, with only imprints from an imagined world

After an hour I was laying on the floor
Slowly realizing I couldn't move anymore
Not that I would want to
Not that I would need to
Anymore

I walked around the lake
but it didn't feel like a lake
anymore
my path was paved
the trees were shaved
and the water
was quiet.

a goose stopped to ogle me
and the other passers-by
it craned up its neck
and yawped
like a cry for help