By the Sea
The tumultuous ocean of my mind
Seems to ebb and flow with the moon,
Cycling through high and low tides
That all the while wear away the sands of time
On the coasts of my consciousness.
Just out from shore there is
A Dam; a levee of sorts: oaken and reaching past the sky.
Behind it are
Poisonous waters, dangerous to taste
Painful to breathe.
All the wild, unkempt, hollow,
Midnight thoughts
Churn and roil on a stormy sea-
Just past my wooden Dam.
At the forefront of my mind
Calm, vacation ocean waters lap at the shore…
But then
A single leak springs from the Dam,
Which is holding back the force with all its might,
But the leak sprouts cracks,
Letting increasingly hazardous amounts of poison pass,
And soon the Dam
Explodes
From the pressure of the sea.
Now the whole ocean is tainted
And all’s fair.
It takes me weeks to rebuild another poorly engineered
Blockade
For the venom in my veins
And to purify the vast sea, freeing it from evil.
Then I’m back to a new moon,
Soon to slide into the pattern of leaks, to gushes, to cracks, to
Explosions
And poison
And cleaning up my own mess.
Maybe someday I’ll learn to build with steel,
Or the moon will cease its pull,
And I’ll be free to sail-
Someday.