Spaceship Clouds

A poem

Photo by me.

Take a trip with me
to the ocean blue.
You don't need shoes to follow,
just your footprints in the sand,
and a belief,
that everything you think you know
couldn't possibly be true.

I walked along the biting water,
gritty sand in my toes.
Warm rain in the cool sunshine,
driftwood in my way. 
I was so close to taking a fall 
but luckily I caught
a seashelled wall
(there are no walls on the beach).
I'm always waiting on you
to catch me 
instead of a dune.

What lurks beneath
where I swim down deep?
It seems your lies
so happily deceive.
You told me 
clear jellyfish, brown stingrays,
sharks,
are the only creatures I will see.
Then high tide came
and an alligator swam by me
(there are no alligators in the ocean).

The breeze whispered
and bellowed, 
it told me 
to cut the line from the tide
to the strawberry moon
so the water goes out
rather than in.
There is no ebb and flow
(just ebb ebb ebb),
it's like 
watching my life
otherworldly, backward,
in reverse.

The beach is empty
at sunset
(this never happens).
I don't understand 
what is real?
I can't see through
the lush marsh grasses.
But I know
there is a boat on the horizon,
it's upside down,
and the sky is under the sea.
I try but I'll never make it there.
And somehow this truth
feels like salty relief.

Now ride your bike with me,
you still have your memory.
Dodging cratered tide pools
on this joyride
where nothing is as it seems.
(This isn't a dream).
There are spaceship clouds 
and your dark sounds
that I can see.
Isn't everything virtual reality?

Take a trip with me,
to the ocean blue,
you don't need shoes to follow,
just your footprints in the sand,
and a belief
that everything you dream
could possibly be true.

---

Photo by me.