Beside The Winter Sea
Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2016 4:08 am
Even the birds feel the cold.
The wind and spray soak my insignificant clothing and cut me to the bone.
Prisoner of the elements, furiously impotent, I struggle against inevitable death.
Answering the angry waves with similar rage, I lash out against the world that's killing me.
Stepping out into the foaming brine, I sink abruptly then resurface to feel the merciless gale that tears the heat from my body.
Against the depth of the air's chill, the water begins to feel warm.
I am not boiling. I am not a frog. Yet through its dark sorcery the ocean is turning me into something else.
Something so heavy and cold, so empty of life and joy; I am a frozen world.
Every mistake I've ever made, from its beginning to its end is fixed in bright detail, like a train of flaming jewels caught in ice.
I am as unreachable and frigid as the stars. The fire burning inside me is not real. It is a borrowed illusion like the smoke and mirrors that led me to this shore.
At some point I am sinking beneath the rippling surface of the sea.
Above and around me, the lie of sunlight. But I've already taken my final breath, and the gurgling shadows hide my death rattle from the ears of the listener.
My heart was a cold stone years ago, and finally in the watery grave, it finds its equal on the bottom of the sea.
I close my eyes but the futility is poignant as water fills my lungs with its black fire.
Again I struggle against the embrace of death, and then all is still but for the ocean's gentle, inescapable pull.
The wind and spray soak my insignificant clothing and cut me to the bone.
Prisoner of the elements, furiously impotent, I struggle against inevitable death.
Answering the angry waves with similar rage, I lash out against the world that's killing me.
Stepping out into the foaming brine, I sink abruptly then resurface to feel the merciless gale that tears the heat from my body.
Against the depth of the air's chill, the water begins to feel warm.
I am not boiling. I am not a frog. Yet through its dark sorcery the ocean is turning me into something else.
Something so heavy and cold, so empty of life and joy; I am a frozen world.
Every mistake I've ever made, from its beginning to its end is fixed in bright detail, like a train of flaming jewels caught in ice.
I am as unreachable and frigid as the stars. The fire burning inside me is not real. It is a borrowed illusion like the smoke and mirrors that led me to this shore.
At some point I am sinking beneath the rippling surface of the sea.
Above and around me, the lie of sunlight. But I've already taken my final breath, and the gurgling shadows hide my death rattle from the ears of the listener.
My heart was a cold stone years ago, and finally in the watery grave, it finds its equal on the bottom of the sea.
I close my eyes but the futility is poignant as water fills my lungs with its black fire.
Again I struggle against the embrace of death, and then all is still but for the ocean's gentle, inescapable pull.