a beggar.

Love seems to be beyond me, an ocean beyond a mug- couldn’t hold it or keep it. And still dreams take me, and midnights warmth begs me to ladle water from an endless sea. Hope will keep me by shore, until my mug is broken, until my palms prune and rot from scooping salty waves, until I drown myself with love in my lungs and die no closer to love than I was with my mug. Hope will have me and drown me, before death does- hope will leave me and suffocate me, before death can. And hope will have me believe my love is different, that my ocean isn’t in the ocean at all, but in the pruned and rotting hands beside me, in the second sorry soul who found love beyond them, and the ocean beyond their mug, and kept ladling- so together me and my ‘love’ will dig, broken mugs behind us, blood beneath our knees and nails, hands pruned and rotten. Me and my ‘love’ will scoop at salty waves until waters warmth beckons us once more, me and my ‘love’ will curl and crawl into the sea, and drown with love in our lungs, and die no closer to love than we were with our mugs. Death will mourn as he takes us.