Ecstatic in the sea breeze,
a magnanimous moment of
interloper pride ******* the day.
Uncoil—my heart, my chin,
my unglamorous abstinence
enforced by fear.
This is no lapse, but fury
and fortitude forging me
in the crucible of love.
Yet again I am up against it—
the stage of floating eyes and
overcooked feelings pawing
at my attention like
squids in a pool.
Ink and jelly in a room temperature soup
swirling and sloshing under
the authority of a rented room.
By gods, this time I’ll make it work—
plant leaves and blunderbusses
leaning against teal paint,
the sun really is on a fishhook.
Stand apart from me then and
judge the waters for what they are—
a storm too small to surface
in a sky too big to swallow.
I’m sweating in it
and the alarm clock is going off.
bleet
   bleet
      bleet
Too deep to turn back.
Too tired to go on.
This is where the end begins,
in the middle of it
with no ground at all.

under all this pressure
do i crack and sink lower
or
take shape and start all over