I jumped off the jetty.
Or maybe I fell,
Too busy with my face turned toward the sun.
Floating in the water now
I’m somehow
So far away.
Alone.
My feet dance
Searching for the familiarity
Of feeling sand between my toes
But all I’m doing is treading water,
The ocean slipping through my fingers
Forgetting there is nothing
For me to grasp.
Colours bounce
On the shore
Only able to see they are human
If I tilt my head to one side.
My mind is happy.
But my heart isn’t.
My mind can see the happy blue
Of the sky.
Open.
Softened by the clouds.
Infinite possibilities.
Tiny specks that look like birds
But the sun obscures my view
As my eyelids are forced shut
So the light doesn’t leave me
More blinded than I already am
By the salt.
But my heart can only see the sad blue.
The deep blue.
The blue that swallows
The blue that extracts every ounce of energy
From the writhing figures,
Caught in the ghostly grasps
Of strong fingers wrapping around ankles
Reaching up
From the bottom of the ocean.
The blue that swirls
Around a body
Both light and heavy
Encasing a sad heart
Building a cage so tight
That while there is so much air to fill my lungs,
Oxygen seems impossible to digest
Let alone
The lonely.
Letting the waves carry me
Feels less like living
And more like death.
An ant
Stuck under the gooey paint
On a blue ocean canvas
With the crashing
Stuffed into its ears
Like the sound of cymbals.
I wonder if you wonder where I am.
I wonder if you know that the floating
Mass of seaweed you see
Is actually my hair.
I wonder if you question my silence.
Then come your words.
They float towards me with the rhythm
Of the water
Like musical notes
Playing on my fingertips
Eventually wrapping around my tongue
So I can taste them.
But they are distant.
I can’t hear them.
They don’t make their way to my heart
Only just past my lips.
They utter
‘what’s on your mind?’
‘nothing’
I say.
But it’s more that the words
I could use to tell you
And even the feelings themselves
Have been sucked out of my heart
Through the souls of my feet
And they are slowly sinking
To the bottom of the ocean.
I could flail
I could yell
I could splash.
I could do anything
To direct your attention to
The girl whose heart is so heavy
That it’s causing her to drown.
But I suppose I’m waiting.
Waiting for you to lighten my heart
With your air
So I can float.
Waiting to see
If you care enough to notice
My silence.
The shift in energy.
The shift of the waves
No longer crashing
In foamy rolls onto the shore
But devouring dancers
Waiting to be saved.
Maybe I’m not talking
Because I’m the one always trying to swim to you
And perhaps I am just waiting
For once
To have someone swim to me.
Talk to me.
Why are you accepting my silence?
More words come.
Memories disguised in the
Movement of currents
Telling me
Over and
Over and
Over and
Over again
How I deserve more
But forever lacking to carry with them
The effort
To gift me with the more
That apparently I deserve.
I am floating further away.
The longer I wait for you
The less happy my mind becomes
Because the less energy I have
To tilt my head backwards
And see the happy blue.
My mind
And my eyes
And my heart
Are all seeing the sad blue.
The blue that swallows.
The blue that steals my energy
And my strength.
The blue that steals my words
And my feelings.
The blue that steals my hope
As it sinks to the bottom of the ocean.
Lauren Kathleen 