To the Artist's Page                    To our home page

To Jennifer Waller's previous piece     To Jennifer Waller's next piece

Drowned

wavy blue-
i can just make you out,
long dead
at the bottom of the sea.

you'd think that once it killed you,
i would have left-
put on my clothes 
and walked away...

but i'm still checking your pulse
even though your arm rotted off long ago
and i'm still sucking your cock
even though it's all been swallowed.

i'm still treading water,
holding my breath ,
looking for pennies
in the muck at the bottom.

and i'm not moving on
and i'm just beginnnig to realize
that this isn't some mysterious sea
but possibly a fucking swamp.

and maybe i'm not a mermaid
and maybe you weren't my prince
and maybe i need to breathe
or maybe i need to drown...

it's always so cold 
when i get out of the water
so i dive right back in
where it's comfortable.

i'm comfortable here- 
in your watery grave.
i've forgotton how to breathe.
i've forgotton how to swim.

i've forgotton everything-
except for you 
and you stay with me
and you won't just die...

once i looked up and saw the surface-
the garish sun beating down.
i can't live there.
i can't even die there.

i can't find my way out.
i can't find the shore.
i don't even know which 
direction it is in.

i don't know what humans do-
i don't know how to touch 
someone that touches back.
i don't know how to move

without fighting
the resistence of this water,
this weight, this burden
this pile of deep shit you left me in.

To the top of this page