A morsel of pain quickens the heart,
its gentle breeze becomes a cloud
simply hovering at first, grey and peaceful a refreshing delight to the sun
an innocent melancholy.
With the strike of lightning, the downpour starts, collecting rapidly, until turning into an ocean thundering and churning
demolishing all things beautiful,
cracking and tearing down ivory bridges with every strike. Escalating, booming in all its mightiness
until its roar is all I hear,
the currents pounding against the rhythm of my heart pushing it outwards, stringing along my insides,
turning me inside-out like a coat.

And I,
amidst the endless battering of the waves, struggling to breathe head halfway under
I reach out to the sky in vain
towards the ghost of the ivory bridge
Gasping for air,
salt mixing in salt
my hand stretches up again
looking for someone, anyone
towards a god of a religion forgotten
flailing and struggling, until my lungs burn
water overpowering the fire in my heart.
With a final pull from the endless current
my head goes under

I awake to find myself in a strange desert land, completely dry.
I feel nothing
wrung out, every fragment of pain
every memory of joy
completely evaporated from my once-soaked soul my heart no longer beating,
I am nothing.

March, 2016