message in a bottle
we’re just sailboats, aren’t we,
two rickety brown dots
lost in the vast blue,
drifting
ever further
apart,
no matter
how far
we reach,
lean over
the edge and
yearn for
the touch
of the
other.
our love is just
a message in a bottle, isn’t it,
one bobbing speck
that rides
the waves
like the birds do,
the only one
that doesn’t
soar but
sinks instead,
water seeping
through the
cracks; broken
glass blossoms,
petals that
unfurl and
wilt,
twist and
flutter away
into the
deep,
deep blue.
in the end, we
were just pollution, weren’t we,
salt-tainted spatters of parchment,
floating far
beneath the
waves, where
no light illuminates
the ribbon
I tied
round the
rolled-up scroll
before sending
the bottle
to sea,
or the
way I
crossed
my O
when I wrote,
Love.
all that’s
left of
us is
the ink
of my
fountain pen,
bleeding into
the murky
depths,
black text
billowing in
wisps
off the
sea-soaked page,
curling like
smoke and
ebbing with
the Atlantic
drift.