The Years Unfolding

Hum of trolling trawlers 

Sway of sturdy waves
I walk beside them
In the void of day
 
Flashes from the lighthouse 
Tell me to go the other way
Bifurcated shoreline
But no indication of the better way 
 
The sight of my breath 
Holds firm to this moment 
Flustered by these feelings 
I cannot accept
 
Departed from the truth
Once as bright as day 
The mottled clouds
like the reflection of my skin
unpressed and empty handed
Sickness rises from underneath my chest
It beats in time to…
 
The sound of the crank of the sunken nets 
Pull me away 
Can they see me standing there
A lanky silhouette in their sights 
Too dark to focus 
Too far from the perception 
Of the person they perceive
 
These men are pulling up their livelihood
I’m tossing mine away
They smell of their occupation 
We call them cast away 
But they see the world from the other side of shore
They see life a different way 
 
I’m waddling waist deep
To wash away these feelings
The ones I never wanted to find
the blood from a broken vessels 
Still stains the same as mine
 
Sullivan, I’m slaughtered on your shore
Years of unlearned lessons
Just to call on you again 
Sullivan, can you teach me a little more
 
A pleasant disposition from the roads I usually see 
Entangled in the disorientation of the ever moving sea  
I walk the Serpiginous lines
Looking for the answers to
Questions wrapped around the
Matted gray matter of my mind
 
I wish I had a hand to hold
To furrow into mine
But everyone I’ve touched I’ve broken
I stand defeated
Do we meet again 
Maybe all I feel is just beyond my eyes
Maybe I’ve touched the mind, of another time
But have I anymore time to try
 
This seems the only place 
That still makes sense to me
And it’s worth the pain
to stand here watching 
From this side of the shore