Waiting for long hours, a promised paradise
with aching feet put
to soft-pillow sand,
serenity seems far out of reach.
Now we sit at home across from the fireplace,
not speaking,
remembering-
we went to the sea and expected
what was never really there.
Clear water, gentle sun,
hands entwined and worries gone.
While ocean spray cleansed
or at least, made us forget-
but dead things get buried on the shore
cracked, imperfect shells,
a fish, gasping,
blood rusting the water.
I cry on the way home.
You cry on the way home
I cry before I go to bed.
I cry and I watch you sleep.
Years ago this would not have been so hard.
We would have smiled just as
our mother had wanted.
I would’ve watched the fireworks, you know.
In a dream I returned to an island once called home
I danced, I swam, I prayed to
a god in which I don't believe
and an uncovered history was poised over me.
I am awake and I cannot hear the ocean.
I cannot sense your eyes anymore,
as you promised, watching me from
the terrace, or that happiness
I meant in everything I have said.
Please don't tell me that I made it up
all inside my head.
