Indefinite Tides

she speaks in vinegar riddles
and bides her time in shipwrecked
smiles- she's
ticking off days for the boy
with stormy eyes who promised
he'd be back in a season or
two.  he, who was

crafted from the leftover bits of the moon
and the meandering sky with runaway
stars lurking deep beneath his ribcage,
waiting to fall whenever he spoke
like a saint, whose divine sacraments
parted land and birthed lives; like a
sorcerer whose words launched a
thousand sunken ships but

now, she pops pills like reminders,
stabilizers that last 4-6 hours
depending on her ability to forget

and she's lost in herself
again, among faltering brainwaves
and wavering heartbeats and the
whimpering echo of her own worst fears

like: he's gone and he took all
that's good of me with him,
my weighted bones and my bated breath
and my lingering hope, too

that thing with feathers that
cries when it's plucked clean,
skeletal and bare and smooth
enough for me to rest my weary head on.

see, the ocean cracked and regurgitated
a misspent, unforgiving gust of
exhausted promises.

she still wears the necklace he
gave her, the wanderer who crafted
wreathes of forget-me-nots to bring
about the
sweet tongue she carried, now
turned salty and bitter and
perhaps a little toxic
too, because regret always
tastes the same brand of
lethal.

she decided
the most important word in life is goodbye.