<Frothy waves coated the slippery rock
Seagulls gulled annoying caws
A ship had wrecked upon the beach>  

There he sat
Dazed and confused
Trying to grasp his surroundings
“Thou art alive,” he said to himself.
“Not for long,” replied the sea.
Fear told him to run
Reason told him to listen
Experience forced him to say
“It is true that thou hast lived many a year,
Ye foul beast,
Many a day hast thou slaved upon thine waves.
Just look upon my hands and ye shall see
The scars that time and ye have left upon me.”
He waved his hands in violent gesture
Caulouses cracking in dehydration
Pain a parasitic friend
The sea casually mocking him
“Oh, but I know of thee.
I have looked after thee from afar for many a sun,
And moons have bled and stars have fallen
That cannot give number to the times I held thee afloat
When otherwise thou wouldst have sunk into my depths.”
He laughed and his body ached
A grin twisted his wrinkled facade
Gazing around at the irony of the god
He said,
“Yet here thou sittest, surrounded by thee on all sides
Accursed by thy blasted brethren baking thee alive
And thine water be poison that I cannot drink
Parched with a thirst thou canst not sate
If thou be so benevolent,
Why must thee be so prevalent?”
At this a rogue wave rushed high
A not-so-veiled threat flattening him in proscinesis
“Little man, knowest thou not of my scope?
Thou hast sailed me across the constellations,
Beyond Terra and Firma
Riding Pegasus to Orion
With Polaris as thy guide
Across the entirety of my body have I graced thee
With nigh a swell to impede thee.”
He paused in recollection
Remembering hard days and nights
Pulling his oaken oars with little resistance
To his taskmasters chiming rhythmic timing
“Row… row… row”
A tear rolled down his face to join the sea
“Then why hast thou stranded me here,
Alone to die,
Ostracized from thine protective *****?
What sin hast relegated me to divine flotsam,
Cast away and destined to be forgotten?”
With a splash that could be translated as a laugh
The sea sighed as the tide began to recede
“We all have our limits, little man.
Mine is the earth that bars my current
And thine the body which rides it.
It seems we have both reached our ends
Mine the land
And thine thy life.
It is time that we say goodbye and part ways
Mine to my depths
And thine to thy death.”
With a wash he looked down
Only now realising the ghostly cast of his weathered skin
Slowly he stood and with a few tentative steps
Descended into the God who had taken his life
In exchange for his freedom  

<Frothy waves coated the slippery rock
Seagulls gulled annoying caws
A ship had wrecked upon the beach>

There were no survivors

Far too many lives

are a roller coaster ride:


beaten black and blue.

I have gotten to the place
where I hate most everything
Except for the deep, raw truth

      of true brokenness.

The love that I  feel
for those  left so alone
undoes the twist of my hatred,

Bringing a warmth  that
keeps me alive, in my deep longing
to be with beautiful spirits,

                       kindred.

I woke up in shadows,
The bottle beside me
Chasing the ghosts of what used to be me
Thought I found love in the haze of the night
But all that it brought was the cold empty fight
I rose from the ashes
Rebuilt my own way
No longer a puppet
Im learning to play
I’m standing alone
In the light of my truth
No longer a prisoner of dark wasted youth
With every step forward I’m more than alright
The love that I lost led me back to the light
Memories haunt me like smoke in the air
The laughter the love it’s simply not there
But I found a new strength in my solitude
Embracing the calm, I’m cleansing the rude
In the silence my heart found a song
A melody whispers
“You’re where you belong”
Im standing alone
In the light of my truth
No longer a prisoner of a dark wasted youth
With every step forward I’m more than alright
The love that I lost lead me back to the light
So here’s to the journey
To healing and grace
I found my own home in this damaged space

A wise man once said,
if you want to allow yourself a bread,
you need to know how to sell yourself
when he found my dusty grey shelf.

Young Me asked — “What is it that I need to sell,”

and he responded,

“sell your laugh
with a mouthful of pebbles in your mouth,
then sprawl your wings of a moth
and mimic a butterfly,”

“But, that's All I have left!” Young me screeched -
protecting the only vanity I possessed,
which I put on the market so cheap, so priceless
to those who never will to pay,
but I demanded the bidding too high
to those who gave me
a worthless charity,
a careless pity.