Witherland

[1] This is Where We End

[1] THIS IS WHERE WE END

This is where we end:
a broken oxygen tank, an ocean
ahead. I hold infinity in glass shards,
hoping it won't cut me.
We wish for more than I can recall,
but the water surges. We look
through surfaces and expect
we'd return home with sand
in our hands and shells to display
on cabinets. Dust comes to them
faster than we thought, but we don't
wipe them away.

This is where we end:
our legs atrophy, our lungs
contracted, searching for an Eden,
our hearts bleeding.

I've grown to see red on the water
before the sun sinks clean, like
it's blood seeping out from our chests.

[I no longer want an elegy
for the missing light, in the end
it's the dark we see at the bottom.]

We breathe big, we dive head first
into the cold, but there is never
enough air for the both of us.

[I'd exhale the air back for you
if only you could breathe it back
in the same way.
But we are a waste
waiting for the storm and
we drown.]

This is where we end:
We've learned to tread our heads
above water but we want too much,
we hate too much.
And now the currents are too high
and my lungs are brimmed
with too much
water I can't un-swallow.

[If you give me a second,
the glass shards are yours to keep.]

This is where we begin:
a trench cracking the ground,
depth swallowing us in.
We breathe. We dive.
And we stop looking up.