Overnight
    a storm
has moved
 into this city,
phone wires
      dangle
precariously,
houses are
defenceless
     against
sea, held
together with
bits of wood
& string like
our fragile
bodies,
covered only
by a thin
layer of skin,
        pushed
to survive by
forces outside,
to reconnect
       with the
wild, not
       found in
books but
hearts, bones,
blood,
  biological
   instincts we
once
  understood.

He sat watching as the love dripped out of her,
like broth dribbling off the spoon back into the bowl;
each drop of pho causing ripples of warmth.

He wished to plunge deep inside of her soul,
to penetrate her mind and pause briefly, but
long enough to see how much love remained.

He watched as her hands became a swarm of bees,
her brown eyes turning to fire as she spoke,
and in this moment she was still beautiful.

His heart writhed while slowly realizing that,
it doesn't matter how much you love someone.
Sometimes love just isn't nearly enough.

To face the fear of being liquid, I go under, float the drift.  Leave the boat behind, no worries.  I am in no hurry     to school with the rest, colorful parrot fish, at home in the depths.  

I am not afraid of sharks materializing from the inked abyss. The nothing in their soulless eyes is just black-bottomed assessing - not one of us.

In a lazuli sea, the barracuda cartel tails me, their silver barrels rule the reef, leering grins glinting diamonds, hungry pirates seeking gold hidden in my tender lobes.  

Yellow-bellied sea snakes swarm, their sinuously wicked heads disappear and reappear on ebb and crest of every wave, see their split tongues read the chemistry of each exhaled breath.

A swollen catch unsought.  Forsworn.  What's lost will be reborn.  From within, yolk still tethered, resting on the bottom.  Net a dying heart, return it to the deep, watch it roll and flutter, remember how to beat.

Your secret wrenched
                                              my breath
                    away from my lungs blithe
    their unguarded life

left in its place a field
    of burning pride, singed tips
of innocence i felt for you,     glowing
    flowers in the fire

    my stomach jammed with jagged
                    stones which ground and bore
           against themselves as if making meal

      all these things until whispers
of surrender contrived
   nests within the eaves
  of my torrid mind

and with it returned the ease
of a sleeping child.