Pacific Petrification

I stand, toes buried in the sand,

I watch the waves unfold into the tide on the beach, wrestling with the land and my feet now buried deep.

I saw this unfurling, dancing with the potency of all that has and all that will be. A tiny taste of me peeling off and floating out to sea. It's all I see, as far as the eyes can reach, specifically Pacific pacified in my petrification.

night ebbing with ebony shade and a moonlit gaze. The flow of the soft tide glazed my molasses limbs; drab in muck. Mile and mildew, my hull has become solid on the sand and foundation built by rot.

tears rolling off my face, these waves crash leaving salt-stained trails across the bow of this sinking ship. My body rocks on this ocean of knives and broken glass, slicing cold.

Circles like those who know my fate, sharks and seagulls. Circles like help, inner tubes. Circles like my sanity; or lack thereof. Like a guise I wear around my face. My eyes.

Circles—like the second time I lost my shit, the first time I lost my grip. Storm shifting cyclically above me, maelstrom beneath me; whirling with madness to the extent that they tied me to the mast of my imminent shipwreck. Shore rocked, salty gulps of seaweed slap across the face as the coral rips through my flesh serrating me to the bones; these ropes find new grooves tourniqueting bleeding wounds. And for a brief second

I see the enlightenment in pain,

the prosperity of having nothing to let go of, the sweet blushing bliss of the abyss as she stares back at you, but not at you, through you—empty—and back into the storm, the eye only keeps you safe for so long and she's never been more happy to see you, but the bitterness comes in the glorifying ray of light that she devours; like she'll devour me.

And it's gone, the illumination, darkness' greatest creation, its own shadow: light. Swallowed by this viciousness returning me to my floating castle, this fortress I'm wrapped to, no more disassociated dysphoric drifting away to mindfulness sanctity; just waves swelling and lighting setting my house on fire. My sails lit, toppling me like an ocean to a... cigarette.

My manic mantra I whisper with a smile; all ships sink.

The undertow crushes with pressure unfolding like flowers, pedals individually punching my lungs-gasping and swallowing water down like cannonballs around my feet I drag these once rooted limbs across these shipwrecked boats;

I stand here on the coast, suns coming up, anxiety shifting back out to sea—like the tide and a shuffle of my feet; I was free—apparently.