A Heart Is a Sinking Ship

Even in the rain I can find your shadow and stand in it as you list off my unpleasant qualities in a fit of love. This is an iron heart with rivets of gold shining in the dark. The rain may turn all to a rust colour but if you look beyond that I might just be glittering under the edge of the covers with my arms wrapped around your chest. Your blinding yourself before the dawn even comes with something choking what could have been suffering in goodness.

I have been twisting under these clouds pressing down on me. I would take you back to those golden fields I came from so long ago to run down the hills of dust and crickets far from this damp city squashing a wildness I once had. I still hear wind rushing through the pine trees calling my name as the moths came to dance against the window frame every night. I want to add your name to my dry and cracking desert lips. Take you from here; let the sun write a new message in intricate tongues on the edge of the river bed in sight of a violet forever even for a little fleeting while... but you are pushing. Away and up never even letting it happen in the dark of the night.

I have drowned myself in the oceans throwing themselves up against the city walls. I have run through wet tree branches and felt the sting shock me back to the world. I have let the sand burn between my toes standing naked as the sun set. I have felt the waves lap at my breasts as I searched for sharks freezing in the deep. The ships took my soul to sea and left it there. You swam out to them and maybe you saw it there but you never brought it back.

I have held the broken in my arms setting them free and hoped they'd come back to me. Every night I open up the windows and let the rain in. I ask the rain 'Where have you been? Have you seen them? Are they coming back to me?" But the rain only drums cryptic answers against my skin dragging me further into this darkening landscape. My questions remain unanswered and I drag my grandmother's quilts out to sing her song under the canopy of this city so far from home with stars blacked out like missing teeth.

I think I'll set fire to this sinking ship and see if it can burn in the rain. I had my eyes all boarded up before you came around and ripped the nails out. Maybe I can make a raft out of the left over planks. Maybe I can set those on fire too. I want to know if a heart all flame can illuminate the darkness down by the ocean so I can see my way. So I can follow those burning ships into the night and sink myself below the waves to a kingdom of floating seaweed and dashing seals where I can drown much better than in these small increments in which I am drowning in your rainy shadow.