I fall in love, like it’s a dare.
No helmet, no warning,
like being in the middle of nowhere,
when it starts pouring.

My hollow heart, unprotected,
waits to be washed away
with echoes of the silence,
that grow too heavy, until they strain.

The flood begins within,
soaking through skin, through veins,
tainted by you, to my core,
with a weight I was never built to bear.
The water rises, inch by inch,
but I don’t gasp.
I’m prepared.

I drown quietly, without struggle,
as if this ache has earned its place.
The tide carves out my ruins,
leaving nothing, but empty space.

And maybe that’s the mercy —
not the saving, but the cease.
When the water stills inside me,
there’s a moment of release.

He beckons me forth,
my sanded toes dusted like candied fruit,
ready to be washed clean
by the delicate froth of white salted foam.
The hush of his tide brushes my bones,
black glass whispers,
rhythmic charm,
his fingers, luminous,
glint blue as he parades the coast,
curling around my ankles.
The moon sways,
singing silvered lullabies
rocking the earth
so that he sloshes, just so,
like the tilt of a glass
to your lips.
How could you not want to take
just one long, slow, sip?
I long to taste the briny wonder of that deep,
to float upon belonging.
The wind crests over the rolling water,
wrapping me in his cashmere grip,
damp earth, the raw green of kelp,
and butterscotch,
as if the sun had spun sugar
from his sweetness on the shore of day
and left it here in the breeze of night
to cool.
I wade into that ink,
assured by the calm and the air's friendly warmth
until I am marine to my middle.
My lips part in tendered sigh,
for at last, I feel I have found home,
but then, the sweeping of my heart
becomes the sweeping of my feet from under me.
I am dragged along the floor,
waves undulating viciously,
taking the whole of me with merciless desire.
His currents replace my breath,
my thoughts circling,
as if swirling into the drain,
I wanted to be a siren,
and didn't realize the sea was he.

Fires turned to cold, hard stone,
Joy replaced by nights alone.
I offered you the shore, the sky
You watched in silence, passed me by.
Now I let go of sweet old dreams,
The late-night thoughts, the quiet beams.

No one lives on the black sand shore,
Not a soul makes home there anymore.
For there is no peace,
In the land of coal dust.
Evil seeps even into the ocean,
Where 'Purity' once harbored.
What still stands,
Is the gastral rocks gutting through the banks,
Constructing spires to hide,
A skeleton ship parked in ruins of the beachside.
The old SS Purity,
Sent to save those on lonely shores,
From the devil and his kin.
Though now it's the Devil's flag, that hangs half mast,
On the poles of purity.
Don't come too close my boy,
They say it draws you in with soulless cries,

Once you're in the belly of the beast,
There's no hope of escape,
Don't repeat my old sailor's fate

Orange hearts and skies of blue
The stars of hope and continuity blazes through.
Soft low tones, the violin ends the line
I start to feel my heartbeat
The stars ask what are we pursuing
Amidst the breeze of the cold morning winds-
The tune reaches the peak that screams ‘of course we know it!’
Burning passion that will guide us through, it is the fuel of our desire
When we run, we’d only look ahead of us, the sky in front of us
Till we reach our ending there's no stopping for us
Even if we’d grasp nothing, it is the
Pride within the pursuit that
Is indeed the greatest.
19 was a number that
Froze the world. Cooled
The fiery hearts across the seas.
Yet since we clearly know our path,
Who cares if the world has gone cold when
It can be melted away with the hearth in our hearts?
We are like Surges of waves, not one, but countless of them
The violin intertwined with soft piano keys, and our mind is
Set on this journey that never ends, for we have so much to pursue

To laugh, to love, and to live like the surges of passion.

They call the ship 'Burden,'
An indestructible vessel,
Rival to the monsters of the sea.
It's exactly what the people needed,
For you see,
In the depths lurked a beast.
Eighty tentacles, four trade ships tall and wide,
A hundred-thirty teeth when it's smile lied.
They called it, "Kraken."
It was nothing of the likes you've seen,
Emperor of the dark sea.

The Burden could hold fifteen hundred men,
Arming harpoons, cannons, muskets, wit.
The king ordered them to turn the seas red with gore,
Call forth the Kraken,
Strike it dead.
Then to the king,
They would drag back it's head.

So come high-noon,
The ship was in place,
Above the deepest of sea caves.
Letting forth crates of bait,
Staining the waters of the sea,
Until the sailors heard a rumble,
Shake the Burden's iron shell.

Up from the waters came long river's hell,
Tentacles like spires towering well beyond the sails.
But the crew held steady,
"Tighten the ropes, arm our cannons,"
Cried the captain,
"Then fire!"
The seas filled with blood,
The sky filled with gunpowder, fractured shells,
A shriek rang out from the deeps.
The cry of death,
From the Kraken itself.
Tentacles sinking away,
"The head!" Cried the captian,
So Lutenent Lucus dived after the creature.

Tied by a rope,
Pike in hand,
The creature's head,
He began to drag.
Though, glancing over his shoulder,
Through the murk he could see,
The form of a woman swimming away.
Some curse broken, he decided,
A soul freed from grim reality.

Peace.

'Twas but three years ago
I set my pen to sea, a vessel born
a fragile craft of ink and fervent flame
with compass cast in yearning, not in security

The waves lapped soft with secrets,
a few saddening,
fewer sweet.

Each line cast: a current pulling at my feet
no charts existed
no charts exist
for waters this deep nor wide
where poets dream,
struggle,
fight,
cry,
accept

and ancient myths
shared from one to the next
reside

The sky, a parchment vast with thousands of drifting stars
drew constellations shaped like hopeful scars

i
you
we,
search for love – the poet’s atlantis
a realm where whispered truths and passions flow


clouds
like veils
concealed what lay ahead
storms were born from longing
words went unsaid
crucial words
I chased reflections that danced on the waves
illusions
forged in the poet’s unforgiving mind

the siren’s song – a melody of doubt –
called me close
not once, but repeatedly
–
somewhere
I know
Janus smiles
–
called me close then took away my sound
took away my hearing, and my voice.
and what was it that was so alluring?
the shimmer? the glint? the gleam?
or just the ghost of a forgotten dream?

Ink dripped like rain upon my weathered scroll,
a log of my journeys,
a testament to my voyages,
each line, each stanza, each poem,
an ebb of the sea carrying me ever further on my path

There, at the ocean’s floor
lost in fragments,
scattered arrays —
a compass
broken,
fractured remnants

one night
tides of silence
waves of wait
the poet’s curse
the lover’s fate

until

a flash, a beacon–
love’s distant flame–
guided through tempest,
called my name.

–
still it glows
a lighthouse, for all ships
that pass
–

not all who wonder
sink or drown
not all condemned to be a poet,
a lover,
a feeler,
are left to fall
fall
fall
ever lower into the depths of the cold
dark
deep
waters.


Beneath the veil of night,
a whisper grew
a secret kept
only silence knew.
the heart, a vessel sailing starry seas
found shore where love’s soft voice
dissolved unease

no longer lost amid the waves and foam,
the poet’s quest
had brought him safely home
adorning not treasure, nor gold, nor gems
but a reason to put down the pen
a reason to discern
the clouds from the storm


I stepped onto sands
warm beneath my feet
where time and tides and two hearts
met

a poet’s journey
ended

for now, when he
causes the ink and parchment to embrace
once more
it is not for the same cause as once was
–
to express his discomfort,
drifting about on the waters:
his only support;
a 4 legged stool,
built solely to hold his skeleton-
but never built to bear the rest
–
but rather to express
the dilation of his pupils
as dawn approaches, and the
the morning spills like
honeyed gold;
a whispered warmth the
night can’t hold.



the ink now flows from calmer, steadier hands
the poet, now having resigned himself
to the discomfort of the ocean
finally lands.

–
She is my peace
her arms my warmth
her smile my joy
her love, my home.
--

There are roses.
A sniff of that—
turns the trees into sharp thorns.
Sit still.
Secured. Guarded.

Then there is a Tree,
meticulously crafted,
big-footing from the deepest deep—
not only skin deep
but the beauty is on—
deep-bone skeleton.
The pixels on the upper layer stay clear,
and perfect balance holds below, through every layer.

A day fades from the rose,
dimmed—even at soothing eve.
Not quite.
It walks in chiaroscuro,
through shades of tangerine,
slipping into the thick of night—
never growing thin—
until it catches the set sun hiding,
eyeing the new moon’s skin.

It stands,
ready for bold conversation,
as the stars emerge,
whispering
through the seven skies.

Wide-eyed death—
inevitable—
rushes in
on beauty’s stake.
But how long did it last?

Before the blink of an eye,
the tree was back in bloom.

In watching galaxies—top of mind—
it grows again,
quietly,
on the sublunary Earth.

Math of the matter
couldn’t be closer,
nor farther—yet it is,
as surely as cumulative math,
with countless truths under the skin,
unfound until the equation fits.
It can appear with precision,
or stay hidden from sight—
under the sun, or the moon, alike.

Sharpest sharp cuts: linear.
Deepest deep, yet curves—
smoothest golden spirals.

The solid full-stop dot
in Ma spaces
springs the sweetest—  
a panache showcase
that conquers height
and endures time.  

A sniff of it stirs the water—
boundless,
no sea, no ocean, no river,
just flow, forever.
It bumps into paradise above—  
roots stretching,
never ceasing.
Deep down, it rocks the pearls,
up high melts the clouds,
rains soft on the glass—
which breaks
into pieces of a star.

Breaks open wide—yet no angle.
Deep down, it never fractures.
Every line, on every lane,
curves inward
to its digital bedrock:
non-linear, vibrating numbers.

Day in, day out—
no ending at the end.  
A topological fold
opens and rewraps.

There is a tree:
overhead and on the ground.
Keep an open eye—  
it keeps up!