water - a collection of poems

how do you describe someone's beauty?

I can't find the right words to describe the smile that lights up your face.

The way you glance at the ground,

Allowing invisible strings to pull your eyelids shut,

And the ends of your mouth towards your ears.

You walk as if you glide on water

And are certain that the crystal surface is going to hold you up.

I watch you from below the waves,

Struggling to gasp for air as I claw my way to the surface.

When you talk, I can feel your words take the air from my lungs,

Like when I was at the bottom of that lake.

After you finally close your mouth,

I find I'm there again.

The process repeats, but each time

I just know that you're going to save me.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

Fool me again and again, and I should have learned by now.

You're no good for me.

By saying you love me,

By saying you care,

You're lying right through your pearly white gates.

They open again, and I find I'm now sinking to the bottom of an ocean of lies and tears.

My mouth opens once

To let out a scream,

Muffled by the crashing waves above me.

I see you swimming with another.

My vision turns to red as saltwater burns my nose and throat and lungs.

As my eyes close, a figure swims towards me,

Shaking me to keep me awake,

Alive.

They too have been drowning

For someone who whispers sweet nothings to them at night,

Who compliments their beauty and compares it to the vastness of the ocean.

The ocean of which they are drowning in.

I loved you.

But your heart yearned for another.

Another who was not me and would never be me.

Not only can I not find the right words to describe your beauty,

But I can't find the courage to tell you how I see red with hints of pink when you smile,

Or how I feel blue when you leave me at the bottom of the ocean.