mermaid

The sand between my toes is my first reminder that we existed
the grit gathering in the crease of my skin makes me smile
I remember how it got there
building sandcastle foundations with our body imprints in the only space we can ever share
between normality
fantasy
and ecstasy
the night I watched you sink with Atlantis across the horizon
I knew
I'd follow you to the bottom of the ocean
but you met me halfway
we lay
Tempurpedic shore or suspended stasis of ocean blue
and become one
lovers split between two worlds
I am lucky you breathe for me
take the oxygen from my lungs when I stare at your majesty
blow life back in me when we kiss
met above the clouds of her world
she calls me her falling star
a comet who stopped streaking past the sky to become the wish she'd always been denied
she is
the woman I would forsake land for
give God my ribs for gills since I've found the Eve of my life
though she only rises when the skies dust dark as the ocean floor
I would
love fully a woman I can only see in the nighttime
who can only love me back when she feels like dreaming
link on the surface of my consciousness to swim
easy laps around impossibility
you weren't always a mermaid
couldn't be
you coiled ankle around feet and your thighs whispering you love me
are my second and third reminders that my subconscious didn't create you
to keep me from drowning in my misery
you
beautiful defense mechanism
muscle memory mythology
I press her stray fish scales to my ear to hear what she's left for me
eloquent sea shell poetry
laps like gentle morning waves
wafting sonnets and couplets like
cool breezes under the sea
Ariel pursuits will only take you so far
down
to where the ear pop pressure forces you to the
surface where the tide slowly wipes away from fingerprints
mermaid
don't leave
wake up next to me and prove again
that we existed