I wrote this message for you
Rolled it up and sealed it in
Banged the cork in tight
Set it afloat onto the tide

I imagine you watching the horizon
Thinking of me, dredging your memories
Then you’ll notice the glare of the sun bounce carelessly
Off the glass like a crude SOS
Protecting my missive, ensuring its journey ends with you

And you’ll open the message and read the words
That I could not say for fear of speaking first

“I wish we had the bottle to break free from the melee
To give us hope without this certainty
We can hold each other close
Lock hands in the crush
I’ll say it if you do and I’ll say it if you don’t”

“And the crowd will drop back
Like a tsunami approaching the coast
Before we are washed away
And if we hold each other tight
Hold hands in the rush
Lash the flotsam together
We could ride the gentler waves
Make for stranger shores
No stranger than those behind us
And I would rather the void
Than this clinging to regret and shame”

My buoyancy is like a dull rubber tyre
That beats the harbour wall
Protecting this fragile hull

I whisper your name, you return my gaze
Then push with your foot and watch me drift away

I stand at the shore and look at the night sky
And I imagine you looking at the same stars as I
And across this great divide I feel the sadness of your love for me
I taste your tears on the briny air
I brace from the breath of your cries on the wind
And the realisation hits me full force in the face
Of what causes our pain, of what cleaves the twain
Like two polar opposites

I have embarked on this exile across land and sea
I lament your absence, I curse the divide between
Your sorrow is of a different kind
For you have attended my watery wake
You mourn my passing
So I can never return to you