That golden sunrise
against the summer horizon,
Bursting through the purest of sky blues
calming and secure,
was easy to get lost in.
Like the shades in your eyes that day,
a whole spectrum.
An entire world in your depths,
filled with seas and landscapes.
Where I wish to scale it's mountains
and deep dive it's oceans.
And then I catch myself swimming.
Swimming towards an indigo.
Your indigo.
I was getting lost in it's twilight,
Like a super nova from an exploded star.
A color that wakes up all of my sense
you brushed upon my lips,
Painting in shades that the world envies to create.
It just lingered there,
absorbing into my skin
coloring every word I say.
Swirling in a mist,
a color that orbits over me now.

I need to be released
Into deep
Dark
Oceans

So I can sift sand through my fingertips
And hide from you.

So I can hold your sacred eyes in my hand
And blind you.

So I can drown.

I find comfort in the bottom of a swimming pool,
the streams of light overhead
quietly drinking in the water,
lapping at this microcosms feet.  
The familiar weight
in my ears drowns out the noise,
The coolness against my soft skin
feels weightless and beautiful
the eventuality of breaking the surface
is almost sorrowful
No one can touch you here,
like a stone you sink slowly,
you are cut free from the ties
that have held you for so long
and just like the tiny bubbles
you'll race towards the curving surface
and into the light
and realise you were never meant to breathe here.
Not long is left and you break through,
only wanting to escape
back to where everything
was so clear, and so simple.
But, although out of the water,
and into the hands of a new morning
the fingers still curl around your neck,
and you realise
you’ve been holding your breath for a long time
and you're still holding it
And you wonder
if you’ll ever breath again.

I.
Take a plane to San Francisco.
Drive north on 101 across the Bay Bridge,
Through the tunnel on Yerba Buena Island
past the frame houses of Oakland,
past the oil refinery that ignites the sky
past the dry, brown coastal hills,
which were emerald green just a month ago,
that unfold like a hardback novel
and flatten out into the valley.
Drive north on 80 until you get to 99
and keep driving north,
past orchards that line the road like soldiers bearing fruit
past vast fields filled with soy and sorghum
and the ancient dead volcano which breaks through
the flat earth without explanation or warning
and keep driving north,
Until you reach Chico.  

II.
You can get off at E. 1st Ave, but you’ll have to
double-back to Vallambrosa to get to the park.
Stop the car and walk across the foot bridge.
Over the creek, over the dam that creates the pool
named for the towering trees all around you.
There you will see a boy about to jump
into the cool creek water.
He is about 11 or 12 years old.
He will not see you.
He will not know how far you have traveled.
He is too absorbed by the sounds of the other children
Shouting and playing and the reassuring touch
of the warm sun
gently drying his wet skin.
He does not know
that this moment,
Exquisite and feather light,
Like a glass orb lit from beneath,
Will be locked inside a precious box,
and that precious box will be buried
deep within your gut,
And carried by you both,
For the rest of your lives.

Swimming a dream
Of words you said

Swimming around
Thoughts in my head

Swimming below
Depths of my mind

Swimming in deep
For answers to find

My eyelids feel like stones,
skipping water,
but I don't know how to swim.

and inexplicably we jump
into the lake
though it is three in the morning and cold

i feel a young man's giggle on my neck
and turn to find buck teeth
odd-angled
too-broad shoulders for such a giggle

next to him the fog rolls off the water
and covers my chin like it covers the rocks
so i can barely see them
and she trips, tumbling, like she's a step away from an avalanche

pine trees reach up to the moon and down the water
and our laughter
meets in the middle.

Come closer
by all means come closer where in a blink
pools fix and widen into trackless lakes
your eyes unflinching against my own
forcing mine to yield to look's vortex power
I sink lengthways on to beached magnificence
fearing no fences bind this brimming shore
desiring all of your cresting feistiness

we close in privacy like a whispered prayer
I stoop to overhear furled head to head
the feather of your cheek ticked pinker
confession spilling loosely off shoulders
flowing undressed like some burlesque fantail
and I found myself buoyed up on thin air
shocked by the vapour in essential oils
so lavishly luxurious their condensing iniquity
I could only try to endure your body heat
by closing my own eyes for a moment
but out of focus pours into a concentrate

the control over hands gives me false hope
but I find a clearing of purity overwhelms me
caught helpless in all I add to mire seeping cruel
your lifeline lips offering a hint of moist buoyancy
then sinking a ship of plumped up poison
purple as inky clouds penetrating my mind
the slim tip of your tongue elusively unkind
flickering like a searching candle in a cave
dripping in irregular beats an anti-doting
to form rivulets which in their mystical midst
surround a fresh discovered vale to defile

I feel it's formation in an archway of neck
the undercurrents freed into giving way
you suspend on the bridge an apex and deck
my firmly held happiness into crowning cries
overflowing from the safety of inner recesses
the excesses needing knee breeches on both sides
to wade through a drowning press of paradise
in on the outstretched reach of a relentless tide

yet gorgeous is its precipitous edging test
with bouts of engorged selfishness
I hear your eager call in urge
return
from compliance into shambolic demands
until I am summoned to a trembling portal
biting on its handles like a moon crazed wolf
wanting to escape but in awe of its might
that it will capsize and spring open floodgates

plunging me back into dizzy abandonment's past
to the captivating idea of a last biting grasp
at your sweep-me-up voluptuous swoon
so tight on my heart we both go swimming
from intakes of breath into open eyes again
loving the saltpetre of a spa bath drop descent
into rapids extinguishing hot pulsating harm
which taunts and scolds me to calm the claim
for more days of dangerous vain tainted venom
held at bay
held aloft
by your pressure
bandage
arms

it's supposed to be a moment of fun and joy under the sun but to me Its like I'm chained down deep below. Something about this compound does more to
Me then cleaning me. It effects me. It  goes inside me. It let's out my true fears and playing on my mind like a movie premier. I'm not scared of the touch. I'm not scared of drowning. Just the fact that your sharing the  same water with your partner and  I'm just here with the water and my heart just sinking down to the bottom of the ocean.