Sometimes I imagine us holding hands,
Walking along the harbor:
You, telling stories of all these lost years
       like a pelican begging for food
Making music out of my invisible tears

But maybe instead of holding your hand
I should hold on to the future
And stop chasing your footprints in the sand
Only to be led nowhere.
I will no longer swim in these tears.
I have felt the ache of the salt burn on my skin for far too long.
It’s not worth docking on this pier
If you don’t treasure me like the shells along your shore.

So I set sail.
I will find a new island to call my own &
Sculpt the land like shaping clay on a pottery wheel.

I will treasure all of my shells and secrets
The way you did not treasure me.
And for once, I will command the sea.

I’ve dreaded this imploding moment
my entire life unknowingly,
if there was a way to avoid it; I have blown it,
growing pains should end when you stop growing.

I’ve got speckle scars on my palms
they’re always kissing my fingernails,
there’s only one thing I’ve found that calms,
but the road collapses or the guide always bails.
“This is your brain”, but the egg doesn’t crack,
no sizzling grease rain, no white burning black.

It’s the things that feel the best that also cause the pain,
as you can only enjoy the sunshine when you’ve had a spout of rain.
Just like you can’t have a fire without an initial spark,
and you can’t bathe in the light unless you’re drowning in the dark.

But what if I’m tired of obvious consequence,
Hell, I’m tired of everything these ******’ days,
where self medicating was once used in past tense,
I think it’s time for me to revert to my old ways.

So fill a rig until it’s completely full,
and shoot me up with some false hope,
it correlates your method of push over pull,
but it’s still not as good as actual dope.
And let me rail a line of pure nirvana and bliss,
if you’re the one to cut it atleast you gave it to me technically,
if something was never there, how can it be something you miss?
I’ll keep feeding the habit until I can no longer breathe.

Destiny lost when fate found a wall of defy
to change it I would sell all of my remaining soul,
and I think I now know the reason why,
a bandaid won’t ever cover a bullet hole.

as a child, my parents’ comforting
words washed over me like
wave of the ocean, soothing
the wounds left by harsh,
immature names, and i marvelled
at the difference mere words
could make and how they
could change a life

as a teen, my parents’ grating
criticism and unthoughtful words
about the mistakes i make and
the grades i bring home
rub me the wrong way
like dry sand between my toes,
and i try to be the bigger person, i try
to walk away, but with every step
the blisters fester, and soon enough
the wound is too large
to be healed anymore

scratchy and damp do not harmonize underfoot
and fear and the ocean should not coexist
but like this elevator missing the thirteenth button, my comfort sinks with tantalizing, lethargic anxiety.

the boards are a smokeless fire underfoot,
grit rolling between me and chipped brown paint,
as i beg for cold, thirst for salt, but do not run to the provocative, promising body beyond the dunes.

and my clothes are underfoot,
and this lemonade pink towel whose corner grabs at the sand,
and the hot dry fades into something that is sturdy and packed down by bounds like mine.

carbon slices at my underfoot,
the sharp home of a long-dead thing,
as my heel strikes the iron, water-pat shore, and the shock of it stuns my bones.

shock! cold underfoot
lace between my toes, smoking from wood and run
and then my face is in the sea, because who needs air when life is the sun trapping itself in the pink of my shoulder blades?

This is me
Breaking softly, softly
Like crisp mounds of sand
succumbing to the winds.
Because sand
is porous. Unretentive
I'm like this sand
Forgetting good memories
Forgetting conflicts
Forgetting them all at once.
•
Breaking softly, softly
like a house
losing its life to a fire in minutes
Because fire
has no regard for history.
Is wild. Persistent
And I'm like this house
Yielding to the gentle build up of this sweet inferno
Disregarding my age-old vows to "never be bait"
•
And breaking softly, softly
like a feeble brick-wall
Under the downpour of torrential rains. Because brick-walls
are volatile. Unstable.
I'm like this brick-wall
crumbling under the weight of my shortcomings
under the weight of my non-stop errors.
•
You are wind.
Blowing away my reasons for guardedness
Because you've given me less reasons to be
You are fire
Having no regards for the history behind my careless habits
Because there's really no need for it anymore.
You are rain.
Eroding this sanctuary I call
"The place of logicality"
Because logicality never won in the Place of Emotions.
•
But this doesn't mean that I'll stop
Resisting the winds, the fires, the rains. Resisting you
And why?
I don't know either.
And I don't know who will win this war
You, or my stubborn heart.
•
But truth remains that
this is me
Breaking softly, softly
For you.