Gemstones

Floating silently in a writhing ocean,
forgetting everything you ever told me,
gemstone tears slice at my eyes as they
drop free.

Lovely ocean tangles, alabaster limbs, ebony limbs
[all the same in agony]
lap at the edges of my face,
stroke my hair and cheeks,
curl as if to partake of the something I have that they
do not.
It means to bring me further down.

If I struggled, it would mean less,
this quicksand would only devour me faster.
No, I will not struggle.

A memory shivers, spins before me.
Your smile, your eyes- the same in meaning.
I cannot speak
save
for a whispered plea.

Grains of sand, the same adoring hands,
enamored with the prospect
of loving something broken,
loving the potential to fix
something that they believe is in error,
clutch at my legs and draw me in.

Those hands, sickeningly-sweet like the scent of decay,
pull me underneath the swell of rising tide.
Beneath the bodies, to be cradled and loved and fed-
Conjured tears scatter in luminous bundles
across the flaccid flesh of men.
Gemstone spires sway gently in the ocean breeze,
safely loved by the shuddering waves.
Loved because they came from me.