Shore

Being by the sea in your country is strange when home is on the other side of the water.

And so I drop a line
Weighted anchor under a wait
To see if I'll be innocent this time
Or if the court will find another date.


It's a different day and a different tone
Out of the blue
From a cracked old phone
And a desperate old you


By the sea
With my message in a bottle
I wonder if the shore you stand on is free
In a far off place
You call it home,
I,
nothing at all.


Bottle hollowed from inside out
As the message reaches your hand
Lost in translation the words I spout
Out of place and at peace in the homeland.


Your white has been flushed from my skin
In place is this battered tan
And as the days wear cold and thin
Your message reads I couldn't and I wouldn't and
I won't but
maybe you can.


Another you wears duality so well,
I not so much.
For where the waves beat and the tears swell
Difference escapes my clutch


The salt dries over my wish
I wish that this whole life could glide
like the seabound river over his fish
as the salt cracks my heart down its side.


Through the cracks reach the rays of your sun
Broken open to warmth from the sky
Here, there,
you, me,
it all comes undone.


I would like to sit down awhile
Where your sea meets the mountains of green.
Left in peace no longer defiled
To be ashes in the only place I have ever been.