This Uselessness

And be it true that no man is an island,
for out here, perched on the ocean sheets
I see no land or refuge
Empty vessel, for
My crew are long dead
Rations gone, in tow with sanity.

This is my envy -
Belly round and cheeks flushed
Her small hands spread out and protect, but I,
So far from her, feel
Too close to the edge, I would be broken with a single word
I’m already somewhere else.

Usefulness evades me, I dissolve into the grey sky
Splintered, adrift.
Skin and hair caked in salt
A future, thrown to the wind
And with a force into my sails there is nothing that can be done to salvage
What will surely be wreckage, soon enough.

Empty vessel
That I once thought occupied with life itself;
With the fire to give and engender, so foolish
Now creaking and cracked open
It will sink to the seabed to become a slumbering aquarium
Dotted with puncture marks.

Barren, even for all this water
Cold, but that is to be expected
I curl against an internal tundra.
Give me a line of sight to safe passage
And maybe I could forget that I am fruitless.
Could I possibly put stop to this death march?

Though the swaying does not cease
Accepted, as if it were the law of the sea
Gulls circle above, knowing things that I try to pretend aren’t truths
Shall something more come for me when I am finally
hollowed out and rotting
Vultures or hawks, or The Devil Himself?

As the course of this voyage changes;
As my fate is is left to the sea
I do not fall upon the rocks, but instead
am pulled under, out in the great depth
Insides filling with the inevitable.
Features swollen and preserved.

My vessel;
empty.