Shapeless

The night sky makes a blanket

Above the roiling sea.

Wave over wave–down on

The beachless mystery.

Nothing bares a laugh or even a smile;

All songs sing of sorrow, burrowing

Below the tide.

You try to debate a separate peace,

But does that voice of yours lose the beat–

The hiss, the sigh, the hum of the sea.

Swim, tread the water above your head;

It rushes and crushes your ears and skull,

Blaming you for your ugly faults.

Yellow radio static falls from your lips

As dark collapses inward.

You hear it, you do–

They snap, they shout and yell

As you cry and scream,

But they don’t hear a thing.

So what to do now but drown?

No flowers grow, you’re adrift alone,

And God knows your air is fleeting.

The beach at last, it’s in your grasp

But the tide is unforgiving.

Sweeping back and back and back

Your head above you barely keep.

They call you from your deepest depths

From the light that shines so dully;

As in unison, your arms–they move

And you’re flailing to merciless end.

With shoulders failing and blood pumping,

You make one last attempt–

To pull your sorry body from it,

Till sunshine pulses again.

But here you drag a lifeless lump

Back to civilization.

And the sea, it ebbs and flows,

Finding you in ominous night.

It wraps around your ankles to pull you under,

Back to the merciless sea.

Like a slave, you follow its course

Fighting with minimal effort;

The pace grows calmer and calmer

And soon the inevitable is fact.

It slides down your throat like an eel

As you try to stomach the writhing mass

That gives you nothing but hope…

And a slackened sense of loneliness.

You’ve been carried to the edge,

Now let the sea drop you over

Among the ravaged boats.

Your throat is knocked against a dock

And forever may you splinter.

Again, again, you hit the crack, and all alone you shatter–

Because you’ve known only

How to break and glue back together.

Well, this will be the final fissure;

The one that decides it all.

Where it lands, the dice will tell

Hanging from the mirror.

The planet of gloom and gray

Lost its right to fraternize with all its beautiful stars;

Shapeless they burn and unnatural they glow

One by one, they speak of you.

Remember that there is a sea

Below the belt of man,

But above a galaxy full of something like hope.