Hyacinth in the Sea

What would you say if I were to be fixed?

Here I can be tired and let myself go

Here I am permitted to sigh

It is insatiably easy to drown in here

My dear have you been weeping?

I am the corpse of winter snow

And have spent all this time

Grieving 

Here I hold my own hand,

Softly,

And shake in relief 

The air stings as it laces through my ribs

Down here it smells like seashells

Here, there is a stench of smells

In this deep ocean of breathing

My heart is afloat

Here I feel soft,

As if the numbness has eased into a fog of clouds

That I grip tightly with cupped hands

I feel as though a lonely ceiling

As a spider knits its home behind my crusty ear

Today, for the first time,

I listened to my self cry

If only it would stop hurting

If only for a breath 

I don't want to think about words anymore

Here I slump against walls

And wait

I am tired so very often

And so tonight I should like to sleep

Oh poor heart

Oh my poor  heart has learnt to have no purpose

I slice open my chest to breathe

And through the comfort of a crowd

I am buried

The rain kisses my forehead

And grazes down my cheek

And I wish to melt away in its grave

Clasping the dampness of the earth to my chest

For it carries your scent

And so I drink this ocean of wounds 

Slurping every last drop of barren soil

Until it flows as a convulsing breath through my belly

Here there is Sleep 

And its milky white nightmare glow

Here windows shift against the sky

And my hands taste of seasalt

But the sea will not take me back 

Not take me back to my home

To the child I left all ragged and sore

There she stands by the shore

Waiting

Like a lonely ship without a siren

And in her hand is clasped a paper crane

She holds it by its throat

Dropping kisses of tears down its beak

Do you know what sorrow tastes like?

There is a mark here

Where the water meets my skin

In front of her,

She places five clay pots 

And molds them again

Staining the little lighthouses on her arms

She looks upon her creations and sighs a lullaby

Into the ear of the resting whale on the edge of the shore

With blood red hyacinths braided in her hair,

She kisses its cheek and holds its fin in her soft palm

And as it lay dying she rested her head

It was warm 

But first damp,

And then silent;

As it started to get colder

As the windows become still

And airplanes land outside my door

The red glare glows white and yellow

And there sits the little sailor boy

Pale and shivering upon the tide

My hands turn green as he holds me,

And melts my arms away

In the sticky green warmth of the afternoon sun

My clay feet meld into the sun

His little white hat tips

And his arms smell of seafoam 

Perhaps that is why I like horses 

And why I love the  sea

So dearly

But it will not take me home

Why won’t it let me go home?

~jhinuk