"Sink or Swim" by Naomi Jean Lewis

darling girl, o lover mine, you are a lighthouse and i will forever throw myself against your rocks. let me scale your mountainous defenses- let me ruin my hands trying to climb to your face. let me sink into the ocean around you as i attempt to swim to your side. hear me howl to the waning moon to sing out your name: hear me crying out to you to make you realize i will never leave you. hear me screaming to you, fighting to let you know that you will never be alone. let me drown in your depths and sink forever. permit me, sweetest one, to sink into your black. let me drown.

let me sail a skipper deftly around your rocks once i have regained my footing in the sea. let me learn your crags and crevices. allow me to become familiar with the sharp pointy parts of your soul. sing to me your siren’s song so that i might find you, wherever you hide. if you sit in the crow’s nest of a sunken ship, i’ll swim down to you to be your first mate. if you slumber in the tower of a lighthouse by the sea, call down to me from up above and i’ll take the stairs at a run, skipping every other in my haste to reach you.

my life means nothing to me- i would lose it again and again to be the arms wrapped around you. let the salty sea warp the wood of my sailor’s hands, and let the ropes burn across my palms as storms rip them from me.

i would go down with this ship to let you know that i’m here for you. two boats, side by side, sinking through the gentle water to greet each other at the end of all things, at the bottom of  the bottomless ocean. hold my hand as we float into the sand. your childlike excitement in the discovery of undersea mountains ranges, longer and larger than any you ever had to scale in life, is all the excitement i could ever need.

allow me to be everything you need- tell me what you desire, lover, and i will rip myself apart to give it to you. i would usurp poseidon in all his glory if you desired a kingdom. i would tear the coast from this country if you desired a seaside home.

tell me what you need, o darling girl, and i will provide.

let me protect you from the storms, from the waves, from the sea itself. let me shelter you in my arms, little bird.

let me be the ocean to cover you gently when you need to wash yourself clean.

let me hold you up when you are weary.

choose not between the devil and the deep blue sea.

take my hand and i’ll row us away, two souls under the flawless sky.

“sink or swim?” you ask me, every time the wind leaves our sails.

for you, i would fight my my own fate; i would go sword to sword against heaven or hell.

“sink or swim?”

i promise you this above all things:

i will always cradle your face in my hands and whisper,

“swim.

swim, my love.

we will always

swim.”