Just Know I've Been Underwater

I sat there, underwater. With all the time I once gave up weighing down in every direction, I lifted my hands from my lap using every bit of my strength. They moved slowly from the pressure surrounding them, from my lap to my face. I went to dry the sweat from my forehead but it was only by habit.

So I sat there, underwater, with all the time in the world passing me by in a few short, desperate gasps of airs. I couldn't see more than five feet ahead of me but I managed to take hold of the few blurred rays of sunlight slicing through the salted water. These few slivers gave me a few days of life, if I could use them sparingly. My grip was stronger than ever before, my fingertips scored and they held on tight.

As the sun retreated, taking it's arms of light with it, it lifted me slowly from my watery rocking chair. Each hour that crept by brought me just that much closer to the air above me, but the nearer I rose to surface the darker it became. The once secure rays of light, that at the time felt like the worlds strongest hands, began to loosen their grip on me. If I could feel my sweat, this would be the moment that it would become alarming to me, but I wasn't letting go no matter how dark and unsettling the situation grew.

I wrapped the fading rays of light around my wrists to take a better hold. They were the only light left. The stars didn't show, no lighthouse was in sight, these beams were saving my life without either of us realizing it. Time wasn't on our side and my lungs were starting to feel it. I felt lightheaded, delirious, and I'm sure I slipped in and out of consciousness a few times. I shut my eyes for what seemed like a few seconds, to try to regain a sense of reality, but I forgot to open them for hours.

I woke up to the sounds of birds but like as if I was having a nightmare, gasping for air, and sun burnt. The sand I felt on my knees was a sensation that I had not felt in so long that it almost hurt to touch. I looked at my hands, the same hands that took hold of the sun. They looked like they had belonged to a hundred year old man at this point. My skin felt heavier and weighed down on my bones more than I remembered but I was surrounded by air for the first time in a long time. I began to shiver but it made me smile. I took a breath, I was alive but the water made it abundantly clear that it had left its mark.

With You and You Alone

I rather spend my time with you
Than discover a new color
I rather spend my time with you
Than leave for a part time lover
I rather spend my time with you
Inside my chilly home
I rather spend my time with you
With you and you alone

I rather spend my time with you
Than find some buried treasure
I rather spend my time with you
Than fly like a feather
I rather spend my time with you
I hope I've made that known
I rather spend my time with you
With you and you alone

I rather spend my time with you
Grow old, big, and fat
I rather spend my time with you
If you could deal with that
I rather spend my time with you
To build a home of our own
I rather spend my time with you
With you and you alone

Now if I spend my time with you
Would you spend yours with me?
We'll throw our caution to the wind
and drift away at sea.
Please let me spend my time with you
We'll help each other grow
We'll spend our dying days together
Just you and I alone

L.F.S.N.

Walk a few stone throws away from where I rest my head half of the time and you'll find yourself standing in front of the tallest woman I know. I speak figuratively obviously but you would completely understand if you knew what I knew. A delicate frame built of steel, and smoke, and one that's reinforced at the shoulders. The weight I complain of on a daily basis could be tossed a mile high by her and she'd let it fall to pieces just to show the onlookers how untroubled it would make her. It would rest on her back in a neat pile, separated by index cards to keep track of how much weight is actually hers and how much belongs to everyone else. So far she has provided me the path to a love, a lesson in standing up straight, and hours of honesty that I would have otherwise lied about. Find her, talk with her, learn something.

Increase Your Intake, Decrease Mine

Keep your arms at a distance that allows only your fingertips to brush my face.
Bat your eyelashes on my cheek, act like a flytrap and make me feel their teeth.
Take tiny pieces of me to leave everywhere you go.
Insist that I still look great regardless of my plummeting weight.
Lose my voice for me so I can't scream and make it known for all to see.
Keep those goddamn hands away from me.

Stay On My ship, Burn With My Belongings

As it lowered into the water, miles away, I wonder if the sensation of heat that suddenly swept over me could be from the flame's warmth reaching shore. And at that moment, that is when I began to worry the most. There just wasn't a possibility that the blanket being draped around my shoulders was from the fire so far away. The wreckage floated every which way as the ashes trailed behind just before they fell into the sea. It seemed to burn for hours before completely disappearing from my view. I watched from the sand as it moved in any direction the wind chose, wondering if the continuous breeze would put out the flames in a just-in-time type moment, but the gusts only kept the wreck moving and never made an attempt to put an end to the burning. Just-in-time passed but I was relieved that the horizon ate the fireball before I could witness the moment of sinking that eventually would occur. As the realization that the warmth I had felt earlier was more than just a warm front sweeping in, I felt myself let out a sigh. It was a change of heart that came unexpected and now I'm stuck and left reflecting on things I thought to be so romantic but romance it just turned erratic.