I don't know how it happens
Just so
With a flourish, and is gone.
A slip, a fall, somewhere bruises form
on knees or elbows scrubbed raw
in the old metal tub.
I don't know how it happens
That one day we halt the coffee,
or fold the newspaper,
put down the feet and stand up, wavering,
uncertain and lost.
I don't know how it happens
how fleeting love can rise and fall
like an ever'flowing tide,
weeping, bringing abundant, destructive waters,
and retreating far into dark, untrodden caves,
leaving desolation and words floundering about
like dying fish upon the beachside.
The sea breeze rusting your
metal locket, causing rashes on your ashen face.
I don't know how it happens
how understanding and compassion splinter,
one day,
out of the deep blue sea,
and you stand there, feet being cut by
the blades strewn across rocks.
A barrier of salt and iron
stands defiant between you and where you once
saw sunlight dancing on the white-capped waves.
I just don't know how it happens
how it happens so suddenly, and yet
it is discovered over long amounts of time,
skipping rocks across the surface of
a riptide current that pulls you out to sea
for one purpose and one purpose only—
to drown you among the tangled seaweeds
and salty brine and crumbling shells.
Did you hear me?
To drown you in the great blue.
I don't know how it happens
and yet it did,
and now I cannot span this great sea between us.
