I had a dream once.
There I was,
standing by the water,
toes deep in the sand and
hair kissed by
a strong breeze.

The words,
the words the waves spoke to me
are diluted, translucent.
Illegible and unheard.
But I know deep, instinctively
the weight they carried:
heavy as a whale,
worth of a pearl on the shore.

The water embraced me
like a mother.
Cradled me in arms,
soft touch, silk.
She didn't hold me down,
would never let me
drown.

Slowly drifting
like La Meduse.
A moment immortalized,
a breath, the shape of a tongue
- no more,
and they sink into the unknown,
far away.

I wake up in a shipwreck
no one bothered to witness.
The hull was cracked
and the wood is broken.
Not a soul to hear the cry.

My struggle is useless,
for they are already lost.
My little raft,
too eager,
never had a chance
against a tidal wave.
Now it rests beneath the Manche
- a graveyard full of life.

I should have known,
the foam comes and goes.
I should've know;
It can't be caught.
It's free as the
wild marlin, clever
as the flying 'rays.
There's no one else
but me
to mourn
the words the sea
never gave a chance to be.

Some days,
I taste salt bitter in my mouth,
biting.
Some nights,
I stay awake and wonder
about what I lost
that I never had
in the first place.
And the thought manages
to sting more
than any wound ever would.