Souls Within a Stormy Sea Poem
The fault was logged sixteen winters ago,
a ledger entry carved into bone.
I carried the ash through the open market,
swallowed the smoke,
and learned the geography of penance.
Yet the calendar is a locked room.
Every season returns with the exact same trial—
a phantom anchor dropped into the quiet floorboards,
dragging yesterday back into the light.
It is not the original fracture that exhausts the lung,
but the endless rehearsal of the fall.
Between us, the pulse remains—
violent, stubborn, refusing to flatline.
He pulls me close enough to feel the heat of his ribcage,
whispering a terrorized vow that sounds like a leash:
Do not leave me.
And in the same breath, he hands me the cold iron of who I used to be,
ensuring I am never light enough to walk away.
I have learned to flatten my breathing inside this architecture.
There is no clean exit here, no sharp blade to sever the knot;
our roots are tangled too deep in the dark earth.
So I stay where the love is loud and the air is thin—
two heavy bodies lashed to the same mast,
drowning slowly in the exact same water,
learning how to survive the storm.
