diving
Count me out
Count me out – I’m not coming: I can’t muster the strength
To exhale: I am drowning, and don’t want to be saved
/
I don’t want to be dragged up this thin shot-line to noise
I’m at home here – it’s quiet, but for my mind’s own voice:
/
It says I’ve got a mother; I reply: ‘but she knows…’
It says I’ve got a sister yet, she recalls me not
/
It says I love the mountains, and to read, and to smile;
I reply: ‘there is nothing that I love – you are lying,’
/
It insists I’ve a chance still to undo all my wrongs
But beyond good and evil there is no one I owe;
/
It begs that I forgive those who have hurt me to death
But I couldn’t, I’m sorry: I’m not as good as this
/
Then, it whispers a prayer to a god in some tongue
And I give it a moment till its voice is all gone
/
Gone’s the line I was holding, gone my breath, gone all hope;
The screams of pain from my chest let me know I’ve reached home
/
Count me out – I’m not coming: I can’t muster the strength
To keep myself from leaving shallow waters for depth
The Dolphin
A seagull’s wing might glide above me,
Sometimes, a passing boat would cast a shade,
But since the day I turned into a dolphin
I have been roaming ocean depths, lonely in my escape
I never could return to humans,
Where all my loving family still hopes
That one day I turn back into the woman,
Whom I detested, from whom I eloped
Nor could I jump, or laugh, or play with dolphins:
There is a staleness in my eyes, my heart
They feel, and know I am unlike them,
I just pretend to be and, thus, I try too hard
I am alone in this embrace with water,
In my refusal to leave prints on Earth;
My reveries are deep enough to drown in,
And as I drown, I will not alter course
Too Deep
There is nothing, there is no one, there’s no colour, there’s no light
And my feelings don’t cast shadows, and my heartbeat’s lost in tides;
There’s no sound to pierce or wound me, there’s nobody I could hurt
There is nothing to hold onto – not a particle of dirt
I am black, and cold and solid; I am blue and fluid and calm
I don’t think, I am not though of; I’m alive although I’ve drowned
My thick sorrow turns to rapture; my old scars all bleed and laugh
I’m dissolving, vaguely conscious of one thing: it’s not enough
Ghosts of numbers robbed of meaning by the abyss that I face
Drift away into oblivion: they can’t measure all this space
Where there’s nothing, where there’s no one, where I’m just another drop;
You… I wish I didn’t love you – because then I wouldn’t stop
