V

if everything were up to me
‘we’ would be
and never look back
to the people who gathered our pieces up
just to hold
those who left no shell from us resting
for the ocean to have and to mold

I would not look back
and you would not too
we would find each other here, gazing
forward into unstolen hearts
wonder silent for a moment or two

as children do

no matter the tides of time
crash over our beach party or we
keep laughing, run barefoot on wild land
as though everything is okay
as though ocean is mama

loving, as the open waters curl over
swallowing us whole and grand
cleansing our breath out pure
leaving our bodies washed up
barely alive on the sand

there is nothing else to do
when life is that wave
and we don't yet know
how to ride or to fight it
only allow it to take and to leave us

and try, if we can,
if there are hands to hold onto
then to hold them
if given a fight to live,
then to fight it
stay together, to ride it, again
and again