Restless Things

The Creatures in the Sea

I feel like I'm exploding and bursting out in every direction- is this unraveling? I used to be so sure of everything but I can't imagine holding that feeling inside of me now. I've lost all sense of simplicity, all quiet focus, I wonder what that feels like. I imagine it's like a seed buried inside my gut, or tucked deep inside my lungs so that when I breathe deeply, slowly, it grows. And wraps around me and inside of me and cracks all of my joints into perfect place and suddenly I am a being. Suddenly I am real. And solid and sure and here. But I am not here, and there are no lovely seeds bursting into uncontrolled life inside my chest. There is thick smoke and searing embers making me feel like I cannot hold the heat inside. Making me move, and rush, and wish that I could plunge myself into an ocean and swim to the very bottom and maybe then the pressure could hold me all together into being. And maybe the cold water will slow my mind or turn it off, so that I can rest a moment. Just a little sleep. Under the weight of an entire sea.

Maybe the darkened depth could shut everything up inside of me that's banging at my bones and clawing at my skin to get out and I will be a part of this world, and quiet. Like an octopus gliding along the muddy floor, blending into the sediments. I could be translucent and I  could turn into everything around me. And I think the silence, so far below the screaming world, could deafen my ears and blind my eyes and then I could unclench. Or perhaps I could be a jelly fish feeling it's way inside a current, drifting between continents, carelessly, blindly, sensually. God how I wish to be the creatures in the sea.

But I cannot be these things, I cannot even be human. I am turning into stars, and planets, and great bodies of water than I cannot hold within my skin and they're spilling out all over the place. Making such a mess. They're swelling and dying and birthing and accreting and ebbing to and fro. And I cannot keep these things inside my head! But perhaps if I were a star fish, I could adhere to some solid surface and watch all the exquisite fish swim by. I could be quiet a moment, I could be utterly motionless. But then I fear I will destroy myself from boredom, as I do now, because I am uncontainable. And so I should like to be a nudibranch, glistening in the pale and darkened light, moving and changing and searching. They're so damn beautiful; colorful and rippling like satin waves. I think under the light of buried water, glistening near the surface, or sinking to the sea floor, I could finally breathe, pulling the thick water heavy into my lungs, expanding my chest until I am full. I could bend to any sway and thrust of sand and water, or grow from rocks in intricate silicate design. Or settle deep into the abyssal plains, burying myself in mud and daring myself to venture a trench's edge. If only I could be all the creatures in the sea.