I feel the beach’s pebbles roll under my feet, the pain tickling my soles.

Opposite me is the skeleton of an old burnt down pier,

its loneliness accentuated by the seagulls nesting in its ribcage.

In the distance I hear the burble of voices, my synapses flare for receiving the signal

but it never comes.

Like a broken radio on a deserted island

the static keeps me company.

Faintly behind the crackling white noise I hear surrounding tides sombrely murmuring eulogies

crashing against my solitary island, and leaving a brief cold touch

before dissipating in the salty wind

As if it was never there.

Kept in its icy depths, away from the warmth of peoples’ beaming smiles.

I see the ships pass on the black tranquil ocean. I attempt to make a fire, fulled with my passions, I don't need to be touched, just for others to embrace me with their gaze.

I see passengers briefly glance, but go back to conversation after my light inevitably flickers and dims.

I lay in the murky depths

To make friends with the starfish and coral instead

Over time I slowly fossilize.

I want to look back to the past. But time is a linear moving arrow that pierces me,

the further I am away from you the bigger the wound gets.

Each day that passes creates louder tremors in my heart that try to call you back to me.

The sweet words that drip from your lips as you call me your honey leaves a bitter aftertaste.

Like the poison I suck out of love’s bite. 

Corrupting and souring the apple of my eye.

My lungs scream for your breath, the one that used to tickle my face in our intimate embraces.

My last thoughts as I drift into the abyss of the night

is that the shutter from my heart’s snapshot will briefly capture the warm, tender light of the superficial you I once had.

So I might see the ghost of your presence.

If I were asked to describe you, I would use one word: Snake.

Given your cold scales, most would mistake you for a catfish

As each of your lies lubricates your body enough to wriggle out of my caring hands,

furthering the distance between us.

But your love of finding any warm place so you can feel good makes you more akin to a snake.

I thought you coiling your long frame around me was a warm embrace, but it was just you trying to suffocate me.

Little did I know the fruit you offered was not one of sweet nothings, but harsh truths I was not yet ready for

Did you use your fork like tongue to smell my innocence you took advantage of, or taste my tears that you created with your deceit?

How can I trust another person when I’m worried they’ll shed their skin and reveal to be a snake just like you?

All I can do now is be a mouse who transforms into the hawk.

Because snakes eat mice, but hawks eat snakes

An eruption of electric nebula catapults me away from drifting in a peaceful oblivion.       

Hot streams of light wash over my face                                                         

gush into every pore.                                                                                         

The sky, an endless ocean that tenderly cradles the world                                 

and envelops it into itself with affection and nurture it in it’s womb.             

Winds carry birds’ melodies,                                                                                  

I hear tastes of lemon and apple soak into my brain                                   

deafening the sound.

I am an empty shell made of sand.

Black cockroaches crawl through the cracks,

my skin crumbles at their wing beat.

I feel the irritation in my intestines as it wriggles around.

Small feet hook into the wet, fleshy walls of my throat.

I regurgitate.

The itch scratches at my jugular.

As I puke up the words, flies get stuck in my teeth.

I am cramped in a small room of people.

But you’re the only one that reflects in my eyes.

Suddenly, your eyes lock with mine                                                                     

in a fleeting moment that felt like eternity.                                                     

Those precious seconds, frozen forever.                                                           

The sounds of a fluttering heartbeat is deafening in this lonely silence.           

The seducer that is lust urges me to touch your smooth skin, but the chains of reasoning

forces me back, screaming the consequences in my pain wrenched face.                                                                                                                  

Tears of frustrated emotion that escaped from my heart roll down my cheeks, tasting of bitter truths that I couldn’t bare to swallow like sour medicine.

This is an unrequited love, a bereavement of the soul.

You look away.

Time flows normally again.