Sabotage

You will never know
The fight I had
With sanity.  I
Flailed and strained
Was ambushed back
Up against the wall of it

And as I sank, looking
Back, I saw the tides
Assimilate my life into
Submergence and a 
Flat unbroken surface.
All had gone.  Had to

Start again.
I dissolved in those
Black depths, my grains
Softening one by one until
I floated off like
Scum on the water's face.

My wreck was holed and
Sunk so deep there was
No naming it: my Hesperus
Whispering sorrows to
Its drowned kin.  No hope
Of exhumation, the body

Rotting as it lay charged by
Tides and wayward
Fishes, eels slinking and
Curling in its hold.  Ah 
Such deep titanic pain -
The sea the only place for it

Large enough to contain 
That weeping.  So I barged
And dredged that bed of
Sorrows and no light, until
Sickened by the sight of
Seaweed root I'd had

Enough of it so I
Came up.  I emerged into
Light but I stank
All slimed and scaled, it took
Years to clean my gills to
Take in oxygen instead.

I saw sights down there
I hope you never see.
Beyond memory and time
There is living pain
Singing, sighing, restless
Seas of it heaving

Heavy in greeness and
Residual loss.  The soul's
Plankton are missing things,
Krill on the tongue is
Evil-smelling and tastes
Worse.  Down there bones

Soften and disperse.  I was
Tasteless and morose, 
Limp as jellyfish and more
Queasy than I imagined was
Possible.  I bled in brine,
The mermaids sang but

None could comfort me.
I missed the sunlight, the 
Mountain breeze, hills and trees,
I missed my own life, I
Could not stay ill.  I
Kissed them all goodbye

And slowly rose by myself
Towards the beams of the
Sun glimmering through 
The blue surface: ocean
Of my heart that I 
Cradled back to health.

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