Some days I feel like turning in on myself.
Inverting my body. Insulating it against another long sleepless night.
The mind seems to work menacingly in the darkness. Fighting a one-fisted battle. Magnifying only wrong.
~
There was a beach yesterday, steel gun blue. It lay proudly flat, all the way to the horizon, defiant of the sign declaring herself a surf haven.
Wave riders paddled out over marginal lines of foam. They radiated disappointment. Yet she remained unfazed. Unbending.
Unaffected by anyone’s desires or duties.
~
And I think of her now as another restless night lies heavy, full bodied upon my skin.
Perhaps it’s the strange weather we are experiencing. Melting heat, unrelenting even when the evening star appears, followed by descending thermometers which force us to search at the back of dim closets for the jackets we thought we didn’t need anymore.
Or perhaps it’s my innate curiosity. Leading me places I should have ignored. One click further than I should have gone. Instinct fail. My ocean, turned simmering seaweed-green, melancholy bubbling up from beneath a very private surface.
I lie my head back on the pillow and listen to new music that soothes.
It’s obvious why I’m sleepless. I spent half the day involved in speculation. Conversing in legal phrases, maintaining a hard arsed poker-face. Puzzling over ways to unlock my cage.
Or maybe, figuring out ways to remain satisfied within its’ confines. Sad self preservation.
~
I always feel rooted when I have to rely on anyone else to solve my problems.
I want to steer the ship. Chart the course. Feed the crew. Tend to the sea-sick.
I want to be the Captain.
~
I admired the sea yesterday. She seemed brave. Unaffected by guilt.
But the truth is,
the ocean is no free spirit.
She is governed, like the rest of us, by the pull of the tides…
and the moon…
and the gravity of our being.
So freedom is therefore not possible for the sea either…
wild soul that she is.
~
photograph: Gunnamatta Surf Beach, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. Australia.