i swam like a fish to the bottom of my being.
at the bottom of that sea of sand i swam into yesterday.
i drilled softly for the pearls to collect in my little necklace of happiness.
i flapped my little fish tail around and stirred up the sand at the bottom of the sea
to drill for more depth.
to bury myself completely on this side and emerge all the more alive on the other.
to find a shell still intact, a crustacean, a remnant of the great continent’s air fleet, now sunk.
but no. the love had petrified and become
this hard sepulchral distance between us
between me and everything.
insurmountable. and i knew
that happiness was for fish.
all i could hope for was a sparkling bead here and there at the bottom, like a shard of light,
where the ocean just happened to smile on that day.