There is nothing but the Sea,

The scudding of the wind,

And the twisting melt of Time against my skin.

Nothing but the knowledge of our sin,

And my guilt, oozing under my flesh like sludge.

Nothing but your dark truth,

coating the fine hairs on my arm like a mist.

Fever dreams in the darkness, as I lay in the belly of a beast:

You, love, with your lips sewn shut,

each stitch written in ink-black threads,

The wounds where needle threaded flesh raw and red and bleeding;

Me, staggering through venomous shadows,

alcohol seeping from my skin like leaking poison;

A grave, the marble headstone gleaming wet in a driving rain,

the mound of grass jeweled with raindrops—

Old, rotten flowers going gray, forgotten ‘neath the stone—

five letters, scribed deep in the marble,

old pain and fresh agony howling and screaming from the name:

---

---

I speak softly,

Whisper to the winds;

The Sea answers.

She shouts in storm syllables,

Howls in hurricane stanzas,

Writes truth in tempest,

Sings of half-remembered sorrows in shrieking gales.

---

You, love, with your lips sewn shut.

Me, lost in the wilderness, skin leaking poison.

---

The Sea spans the space between us.

The waves know you, and speak of you.

They sing of you, whisper of you.

But I don’t understand all the words,

And I know I’m missing something,

Half-understood truths slipping past me,

And if only I could comprehend,

I would find you.

---

I smell your perfume on the wind.

I hear the soft sigh of your voice,

That dulcet sound you make as you come apart with me.

I can almost taste your skin in the soak of the brine on my lips.

If I stand at the prow and close my eyes, I can almost feel you.

---

Darkness gathers around me;

I wear it like a cloak.

I wrap the shreds of shadows around my shoulders like a tattered coat,

Because the light, the sun, the warmth,

They are too real, too bright, too unforgiving…

And I prefer to hide.

I am king of shadows, wading the shoals at full moon,

storm clouds as my crown;

I play in the deeps,

cavort with the weird, translucent, eyeless creatures that lurk there beside me.

If I emerge into the light, you will see my ugliness.

The Sea will go glassy,

It will become a mirror,

reflecting my flaws back to me.

I don’t want to see them;

I don’t want you to see them.

---

Must I give up my crown?

Must I shed my cloak?

Must I show you all my sins,

worn on my flesh like warts and boils and scabs?

Must I see them, myself?

---

You are beautiful,

You are perfect.

You are a carving of ivory,

a thing of unmarred porcelain—flawless and elegant.

I know this is a fiction,

but such are the games played by Memory,

Such are the vagaries of Time,

Those mischievous sisters of the trickster, The Sea.

---

You, love, with your lips sewn shut,

Me, lost in shadows, skin leaking alcohol, leaking poison, leaking truth.

---

You, love, sighing in the silence.

You, love, reaching for me with a sleepy smile.

You, love, collapsed against a headstone, weeping.

You, love, your spine presented to me,

You, love, wasting away, silence wrapped around you like ice.

You, love, shrouded by the miles and the months.

---

Where are you, my love?