there’s a lot of things that people say never existed,
like atlantis, and the love between you and i,
but i am not here to confirm or deny either assumption,
merely to speculate what a world would be like
where you can breathe underwater,
and i can drown comfortably,
and we are together in a place that isn’t real.

before i get ahead of myself,
i’d like to talk about sailors,
whiskey-drunk and singing sea shanties,
and i’d like to talk about pirates,
and the difference between the two.
what i really mean, obviously,
is that i’d like to talk about sirens,
and music, and keaton henson in the middle of the night.

things hit differently when it’s three in the morning;
i’ll be able to shop for groceries and write essays
and exist like a real person until nighttime springs around,
and then i’m lying on my bed catching stars
on the ceiling, hitting myself on the head
to deserve a glimpse of you.
only when everything goes murky,
and i see atlantis in the mist of reality,
am i satisfied.

am i satisfied?
it’s a loaded question, yes,
but we’ve talked about pirates
and we’ve talked about grocery shopping
and i think we’ve exhausted the laundry list of small talk,
so let’s talk about atlantis, instead.
let’s make plans like we used to,
and you can use my spontaneity
to make another girl love you,
and i’ll be alright as long as i have a bank of imagination
and a sea to drown in.

sorry - i don’t mean drowning.
i mean that everywhere is connected in some convoluted way
by oceans, and if i can stretch my heart miles out
then maybe i’ll find something that i can hold onto
when the world is moving too fast for me to grasp onto anything
except the possibility that one day,
i will die, and my body will sink,
and perhaps you’ll sing siren-song at my funeral.