Night comes r o l l i n g down again in painted coats of thick onyx clouding my vision as if a brightly-striped cuttlefish, sister of squid has enveloped me in its dark liquid sea ink an opaque vapor for protection, a shimmering sheild against disillusionment pain of potential loss endless strands of longing knotting in my hair like kelp keeping me rooted to the sea floor, feet ensconced in the soft squish of muck and earth Miraculously, I breathe, as if a sea nympth, a mermaid holding on to the silvery scales of her reality indigo-dipped in deepest iridescence blending with fronds of vibrant greens and I am floating within a vast membrane of brine somehow nuturing, liquid cushion of womb-water letting it slake the piquancy of thirst that bursts my tongue into succulence Spiked in sea stars like thorny crowns, I reach out to discover new textures puncture the dark with my fingers enfold those waters to me, letting them rock the soul of my soul the heart of the seed of my heart and allow my sonar, as powerful as a whale's encompassing call to surge up through nautical miles of ocean depths, buoyed through layers of waves up unto the winds that ride, ever-tenderly, the surface of the dawn