You and me in the Marianas Trench.

I didn't expect to meet
you here. This was supposed
to be final. I had prepared
for this reverse-assumption--
return to mouth of my mother
Mariana with her hips widening 
deeper and deeper with each tectonic 
trepidation as the earth
makes love to her in fire--
I wanted to be
submerged-- to be quiet as the 
triggerfish--to burn holes in my
forearms over hydrothermal vents--
I opened the window to my bed room 
and set free all my blankets--
took my stuffed animals to the 
pier and taught each how to sink with me--
contorted my lungs in to crucibles--
held my breath in the bathroom
sink-- counted 42 extra seconds
everyday until I could
spend the whole night-- face submerged
in warm sink water-- breath
hand soap and tooth paste foam--
float and dream of angler fish and 
Xenophyophores in my hair--
The ocean came to find me-- clown fish 
and seahorses wriggled one by one
from the throat of the sink 
called me-- sea nymph-- called
me sister--
and I knew it was time to go home.
I left nothing for you but
my oatmeal and pillows--
chained all the books 
I've ever read around my ankles
to help bring me down even though
I knew I was heavy enough to 
sink from my suffocation bones alone-- 
You weren't supposed
to meet me there-- 
this is me--
this is my space and silence--
my place to be eaten by the crustaceans
like sea jelly skin--
I wanted to talk to angler fish--
grow teeth and look up with the
crustaceans at a blue water heaven
without morning or night--
refuse the air from my bones--
There I could
re-read every book and let the ink
melt into bio-luminescence--
blank page nightlights--
this girl-body who went deep enough to look
up at the monsters under their bed--
all blue and sauntering 
breathing soap foam between dagger
tooth brush teeth--
I wanted it to be quiet enough
to hear ever wave clasp its hands desperately
on a shore-- crying lover-lover-lover
I have always known you.
Why didn't you just let me sink?
You came here with your
oxygen tanks and your seaweed hair.
You were here like sea horses in the sink-
and I asked you how you could
be heavy enough to meet me in the 
mouth of my mother and you reminded
me she's everyone's mother and everyone
wanted to sink home some nights
but that clown fish play games
and sea jellies are jealous of 
lungs-- you told me breath with me
and I said I was happy enough with soap
and you taught to eat photosynthesis 
again-- combed the Xenophyophores
from my scalp and together we re-wrote
every book I ever read in water-proof
ink so we wouldn't forget what the poets
had taught us--
wrapped my forearms in sea weed from
the hydrothermal hemorrhages
and spit out salt water until we
both sat dripping on the pier next
to all my stuff animals-- you had brought my
blankets you found set free
out my window-- dryed my skin--
dried my hair-- talked like angler fish
--like the clasped hands of the waves
and the shoreline.