In the tumltous waters, a ship set sail
beaten by the madness of waves

In the distance, landfall drew close, an island of serenity shone in the stormy night

A mirage it maybe, for a ship beaten by the madness of waves never sailed again

there's this boy in my class who can move through water like a raindrop through summer air, though his eyes are brown like the ground on which he walks.
he is an ocean with currents and waves and groundswells, all waiting to drag me up and send me crashing into him.
i've always been a good swimmer, was even on a team once, but his water is pushing and pulling and putting its hands on my waist and neck, tangling in my hair, telling me to trust him.
but how do i trust if i've never been in love before?
how do i give myself to someone and expect to get every penny back?
do i have the time (is he worth the time) to count every coin and weigh for counterfeits?
is part of falling in love taking the risk of not getting everything returned?
can i come out of love unchanged?
or is change a part of love?
i know that you took mythology as an elective last trimester because i saw you in the library and was trying not to stare so let me tell you the story of icarus.
he fell.
hard.
he had wings fashioned from wax and feather and did not heed his father's warnings, flying too close to the sun, touching salvation with his fingertips, only to fall into the unforgiving sea.
if i am icarus and you are the sea then who is the sun?
is love personified within the sun in our myth, something that you must fall away from in order to fall into?
is love the enemy or the goal, something to obtain?
is there a reward for the fall?
is the reward love?
do i need to love (or even merely like) in order to meet you face to face somewhere out of school, coffee maybe?
or a movie?
i hear there's a new one out about a girl afraid of love.
to be loved.
to give love.
to accept love.
does seven work for you?

It’s funny
I used to read and write
Laugh and type
But now I can’t
I’m falling
And as the frustration grows
Mountainous procrastination as I try to remember
My mind can’t stop writhing

My body moving
Head saying yes
Sentences halved and mashed and forgot
Frantic boredom
As I fill filled space
The wave of papers
Books and words
That I’ve neglected
Hit me greater than before
The yells, tears, bad grades, hurt
Take me all at once
Under water, out again
Some day I’ll drown

Sometimes they crash down and the waves take me with them.
Like a tsunami, it’s unexpected.
You usually know the signs, but once it starts, there’s no changing it.
There’s no going back, it’s not a choice.
It’s just a deadly fight against nature and water and time...
I always come up for air before it’s too late, but with my eyes closed, I don’t know up from down.
Am I plunging into the depths or rising towards the horizon?
I don’t know...
I’m just swimming.

You’ve sailed the deepest seas,
And have seen
the most exotic islands,
However,
The most violent waves
Have left you a shipwreck

i didn't want to paint i just wanted to be great at something so i unghosted my soul, told her to go pick 6 roses out of the garden of my love for the mountains & i pierced my nose w a silver needle that was so sharp i could hear your velvet voice again & it call came back to me in little waves of blue pain and sunflower energy on lined sheets of paper sort of like this one with an orange accent I had to find in Rome behind motorcycles & burnt coffee w out the bitter memory of sugar cookies, only the ones we ate on long weekends by the beach beside the ways in which the sun told us the stories of sunken ships & waves the moon wanted to create at 2:11am on the least windiest days. i didnt bring my brushes w me, but a skateboard and a glass house were enough for a disappearing act & 3 conversations w a wall and spray paint can