you

made

certain

just

how

to

inspire

me

as

I

exhaled

every

care,

then

you

said

you

needed

space

and

stole

my

final

breath

of

air.

you said

stay

staystaystay

you said i had to stay

so now i'm sitting here

waiting for your footsteps

to sound, just around the corner

but i must be deaf because they never do

you said

stay

staystaystay

you said i had to stay

it's been four days

since i last heard you speak

since you last looked at me

and i wonder

you said

stay

staystaystay

you said i had to stay

but i wondering

was it just a ploy

so that you could

run away?

you said

stay

staystaystay

you said i had to stay

i haven't taken a breath of air

and i'm wondering if i'm crying

or if there's an earthquake

because you said to stay but you never came back

you said

stay

staystaystay

you said i had to stay

you said i had to stay

but i'm running out of air

you said i had to stay

and i'm running out of reasons to care

You know what men do - they tell you to stick around. Stay. I care about you. I want you in my life. Words that almost carry you through. When you love them like a love song. When you would bend over backwards to please them, impress them. Perhaps inadvertently, but almost certainly not, this will waste your time.

This will waste your twenties.

He never uttered those words. The big three, strung together, a real promise this time.

Everything but a commitment.

I am running out

of time.

I am running out

of air.

When I read this challenge, it made me think of when I was younger, we used to play outside.

We would play in anything outside my mother's house. We had an old refrigerator that sat out by the fence. My dad took the latch off of it so that we would not lock ourselves in it not thinking. But the day he took our latch off, we saw on the news that night that a child was found in an old refrigerator dead. He had been there for two days. They had been playing hide-and-go-seek and another child told him to hide in there and he would hide under the porch. He forgot the other boy in the refrigerator. His parents thought he was spending the night next door at the boy house because they had done that often. When the little boy, two days later, went over to ask could he come

outside, his parents realized they haven't seen him. The boy said he remembered where he hid.

He was still there.

how long can a flame fight the river

before the rain turns it to ash

how long will the charcoal last

before the growth of grass takes over

how long can the weeds survive

before they drown in the muddy ocean

how long can clouds pour rain

before the wind turns the droplets to ice

how long can I stand frozen in time

before your smoke consumes every trace

of

me

of

everything

we were

nothing

left

i can’t

breathe

please

leave me

alone

and then we start over.

and over.

and over.

and over.

You said stay here, but how do I do that when I'm running out of air? If the gulp I take is the moment of peace and the pain will be washed away, is it worth it? I'm in too deep, sinking too fast, is there any chance left of saving me?

I'm running out of air.

Let me go.

''Stay here,'' You murmured, walking backwards, watching me - as if I am about to just turn and run off.

But sadly, I don't blame you. Time is running out; that is exactly what I don't have.

I feel my lungs gasping for air, for life.

But I can't find any, I can't feel anymore.

I simply sigh.

6.6.2020

The surge flows over the reef. Shoreward it tugs, then seaward. I hold the sea bottom like the sea fans, the sea plants waving back and forth in the water flow. The fish move with grace around me, back and forth. The light of the treasure sun breaks into particles around the stirred up sediment.

The distant percussion of diesel engines is the bass. My bubbles flow from the regulator in if joining. My gloved hands tighten, but my body relaxes and joins the flow. The lead weights anchor my waist, but do not outweigh the mass of moving ocean.

I don't know if the boat is still there. The tempo has quickened. The flow, the surge, the incoming sea is wanting to break itself on the reef. Break itself and die like the ship. I hold the ancient timber. I feel the dark wood where the spikes have made the metal detector sound a siren song.

As forgotten as the history I hold, I wait. Someone will return, someone will return, echoes from ages past. I hold and the fish know, the fish stay with me. You signaled stay - but I am running out of air.

#diving #sea #treasure #shipwrecks

I can feel your eyes staring at me as I pointedly stare at anything but you, fixating my gaze instead on a rather elephant shaped cloud. I watch it tumble and run with the breeze as your empty eyes bore a hole into the side of my head.

"Stay. I know I messed up but I'll make it better. I mean it this time, I can fix things - everything - for both of us. I love you." Your voice cracks as you rush through your words, the speech I can tell you mentally recited before speaking dissolves into ruin as you beg.

The elephant cloud is floating out of my field of view, and I wish more than anything that I could go with it, that I could run as fast as my legs would let me right across town to the ocean and everything that lays beyond, away from the park bench gluing down my legs, and most importantly away from you. My throat constricts as I try to speak, every fibre of my body desperate to wrench me away from the inevitable weakness of my guilty heart.

"Please."

I wince as you speak, the tremor in your voice as you mumble out one last plea closes my throat once and for all to prohibit any potential resistance.

"Of course." The words slip out through my gritted teeth that I've forced into an inhuman smile.

The feelings of suffocation intensify as you wrap your arms around me, and I stare over your shoulder to catch one last glimpse of the elephant cloud before it dissapears, taking with it my chance to escape.