I want to be around people who want to grow. Who want - just as much - to see others grow. Here, no one grows. They ferment-
stagnant in their cyclic habits of indulgence.
One great big, lumped-up wound on an uninteresting toe. Empty and obscure. Insignificant. Non-existent. They swell and fester.
It’s an affect.
A homogenization. This distillation - this poison -
a barrelful - bitter to the taste.
Turning and turning the whirlpool grows wide.
But I do not break free. No I do not break free.
This blood dimmed sea
Is not loosed.
I collapse in
on myself.
I see my face at the surface
high above the barrel as the poison

leadens me - draws me down.

Pluck me from the sea

that
dissolves
my skin.
That stings
my eyes.
That crashes
on my ear drums.
That
surges
toward me
with a searing brand.



Wrap me
In the warm dry sands
Of distant land
That this deleterious moisture might be wrung
from my mind.
Dried from my rolling soul.

I need to breathe.

Prop me up. Let me face this distilled ocean. Let me look into the mirror of the sea. See what I had become through the eyes of who I used to be. Through my eyes - me. I see!

A shell.

Tiny, uninteresting, non-existent creature.

Tucked away.

Safe to rot.

Look down!

It moves but makes no ground.

Swept away by the slightest current.

Weak from these noxious torrents

seeping through the cracks

in the seal - so carefully assembled.

Diluting the pain with a saline drip, drip, drip.

Quick! Pluck it from the sea!
Plant it in the warm dry sands
of distant land.

Look what grows! –