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2. Cliffdiving

My gasps spill my habitual dread
that this might be my last one
for I had never tricked the air.
I remember my first flight
aerodynamics unfolded,
yet I questioned my sanity.
No difference with a diving board
with cheers below,
my sun-blinded grin
I took the jump.

My gasp determined the fear
it was not of water, but of air;
that this might be my last one.
I do not know how others
measure the wind,
but I count them by fears.
From an old woman's hollow breathing at her deathbed
to a child's with plastic tubes on his nose
to my 'ahs' at the top of the cliff,
I kept wondering why the wind was married by the sea.

Oxygen can never be enough
or else how would we die
we only outsmart it underwater
when we hold it,
defy it,
while we ponder upon how brave is the sea
to have loved something that takes her sanity away.
Cliffdiving might have been their love child.
Or maybe an aftertaste when nature made love with nature,
Salted.
Amorous.
Death is such a mystery.

On the way home, the sea breeze
scandalized my twilight nap,
I kept a grin and exhaled the salty air
to the opened car window
bowing to the wind,
accepting defeat.
As I count it with fear,
I grin and hum a promise,
that this cliffdiving
should not be the last one.