Doesn’t run.

Doesn’t even curse.

Just sits there as the tide

Comes surging forward

And the clouds tumble

Over one another in the sky.



Doesn’t run.

Doesn’t even curse.

Just pulls out the tile

In her pocket as dull black

Water sizzles and froths

In a torrent all around her.



No, she



Doesn’t run.

Doesn’t even curse.

Just stares at the engraved

N and the sub 1

On the game-piece’s face

While the water drags her in.



Even when she loses her footing, she



Doesn’t run.

Doesn’t even curse.

Just clasps her hand

Into a tight fist before

The icy water

Swallows her whole



And thinks:



Where are you now,

Ocean Eyes?

Where are you now,

When I really am drowning,

And not just in every word you say,

Not just in every thing you do?



The force of the tide

Is not very strong,

Yet she does not fight it.

She is limp,

Now part of the water

Just as she was once part of him.



Where are you now,

Ocean Eyes?

Where are you now,

When everything is just too hard,

When I really do need

To disappear inside something bigger than me?



Seagulls scream overhead.

The sky is a black oil rag,

The lake a dark,

Rippling curtain,

The wind a shrill lamentation,

The girl a hollow husk.



After a time and with crunching,

Crushing force.

Her ragdoll body collides with a rock.

But she doesn’t move.

Doesn’t grab hold.

Doesn’t climb on.



No, she



Doesn’t run,

Doesn’t even curse.

She floats facedown,

Almost as if to look

after the tile

that falls from her hand.