I Need You Closer
Love & Longing
ocean
love
longing
distance
he said. but i am about as attainable as horizon—no, as ocean rushing toward you only to slink away. i know this, somehow, is worse.
you want to drink me in, but you gag and choke—my brine not made for your throat. i don’t think anyone could swallow me, feel me wash over
their skin and settle. if i was going to call any shore home, it would have been yours. but somehow your whale lungs were still not quite large enough to withstand me. and stuff
First published in Poems of August (2021)
Artwork: The Kiss of the Siren by Gustav Wertheimer (1882)