oh ocean

when you are young people throw the girl scout philosophy at you that you can be anything you want to be

but this is not always true

you can't be born in a particular place or to different people

you can try and steer your future in a general direction but inevitably it will go where it wants to take you

you can also not change your form

as hard as you may wish you will always be human...no matter how inhumane some people grow to be

so it one of those restless evening that i sit atop the sand in my home town and stare off into a dark endless ocean in sheer jealousy at it's depths

i grasp deep fists into the sand close my eyes so tightly that the corners wrinkle like they’ve been sliced in with swords

wish as hard as i can that i might be a part of it

that my body will dissolve into the sand

that when the ocean wanes forward i am picked up with it and dispersed

somehow becoming omnipotent

when the waves rise and crash against someone’s skin i can feel it

to know the movement of every creature amongst a vast sea

to bob back and forth with a school of fish
a many that becomes a whole

to feel lovers slowly trace their prints across my shores and hear the words they speak

to know an innocent love

to feel eternal

to be shoveled up into a pale and built up into a castle

then to be knocked back down again hours later

to see every side of the moon’s lights and the shadows cast by it

sunburns and family outings

picnics and surf lessons

and a power that i will never know

winds so ferocious you couldn’t tell me they didn’t feel emotions

picking my waters up and slamming them against the jetty

tearing down sea walls and ripping the sea oats out like the hairs on the head of a nervous and troubled woman

unpredictable unknowable strength

lightening bolts that reach deep down within me but can do me no harm

and clouds ridden by grey ghosts that lay heavy upon my body

to be as fickle as i dare

for amongst the peak of my rage i would drop my winds and throw the clouds off me like a winter coat

and all would be calm again

a mirror for the ages

uncorrupt but not for lack of trying

so only my human tears seep into this sand for it is all that i can do to release myself upon it

hope that my tears travel in the midst of the ocean and spreads themselves to the places i will never see

i can not be the sea

and i can not know the sea

i can only wish selfishly and whimsically for what i want within a dream and in my dreams i will have you

oh ocean with sand and waters

with moon and wind

with clouds and lightening

with life and death

and everything that light and air can and cannot touch

for infinite depths