All Along

This is the poem that needs to be written,

slunked upon broken shores by a man who didn’t want to leave it here,

wet dogs all around me as a woman in red tells me she hates them.

Can I take it all back, the sinking of those ships, if it means I can stand on that firm deck once again?

The cuts on my fingers keep reappearing,

reminding me of the misery you left upon me,

drowning down deeper than the love you punched into my chest.

Drunk on desire,

conspiring to create something that lasts forever,

yet only getting halfway.

This is the biggest heartbreak of my life.

It has to be.

For what if something worse is yet to come?

What if everything I thought I’d felt is miniscule in comparison?

No. That is the screeching siren there,

screaming at your side about the dogs,

the woman in red who slithered out of the water all along.

Mermaids are different.

Beautiful and robust,

shimmering in the candlelit orb in the sky,

bubbles levitating as you become something new.

You.

You were meant to be here.

You were meant to be here all along.

Another sailor will find you.

He won’t let you drown.