the sharp taste of salt water

burns my throat

the smell of fish and oil like the sound of hopelessness dripping down the drain

we are floating on a precipice

I am

drowning

in this

feeling

I drown in all

my feelings

did you know whales bloat when they die?

floating on feelings until eventually they explode

we are diving deeper into the ravine of whirring wire and concrete

_we_ are _eating_ her children

ripping

pink meat from inside a bird’s stomach

fingers covered in red juice

counting bottle caps

i am

lost in the tangled seaweed

sitting on an iceberg about to

crack and

plunge me,

lifeless, into the icy water

but I don’t mind drowning

orcas have been crowned killer whales because they lunge and beg for blood in the constant torrent of watery thoughts

tail slapping the life boat of therapy and _control_

_take back your life! do something, anything! _

constantly struggling to stay above the surface

a polar bear drags its cub’s dead body across the crisp snow,

tainting it in blood

red on fur, teeth in skin-ripping apart their child’s flesh and

swallowing it

until they live and breathe despair

filling their stomach

with the warmth of the end of it all

if white means purity

the splotches of black on their skin must be brutal marks of their corrupted

battles on their bodies that show the violence of their thoughts

of my thoughts

the black bruises on _my_ skin must be sins written in permanent marker

that was not an original simile, a slogan

_save the whales! save the fucking whales! _

before they drown

I feel connected to nature in the sense that if I swam below the surface into the depths they would not hesitate to rip my limbs apart

making me apart of the collage

i am insignificant compared to her beauty

a hodgepodge of flesh and bone

_she_ took the carver's knife and

carefully

made her masterpiece

maybe there will come a time when I can smear mud over my veins

and turn my

bloodstream into

foggy mornings and rushing waterfalls

ochre sap and streams like a frantic stampede

ice blocks of hurt and soil that reflects the solar system

our blood and _her_ blood bleed different colors

_her_ organs are clouds and ours are lungs that take and take and break

crushing life in the diaphram of piston pumps

oil choke-holds, slippery, slimey humans

congrats, we’ve played ourselves!

you think the earth

_likes_

__

having us crawl all over its surface?

like bugs, we are an infestation

like birds, we’re gonna fly right off the edge

so go ahead, cut that tree