• Oh, boy, you got those hands
    firm and calloused with a tender touch
    when feeling them scrape across my skin
    send minuet shivers down my spine
    We’ll bottle love’s fresh tears
    and throw it all into the waiting sea

    The birthing, crashing, dying motions of the sea
    stand before two lovers within locked hands
    while they – while we stand, shed not one tear
    because that caring, caressing touch
    keeps such fear from my spine
    bury my face in your soft skin

    I swim through an ocean, a sea of your skin
    This place is home, I live in the sea
    no sharks with teeth or stingrays with sharp spines
    the threat of any would send me jumping into your open hands
    To be corralled by your touch
    and a slave to your tears

    Time dries tears
    and seasons change its skin
    The ground begins to suffer winter’s frosty touch
    We’ve long since abandoned dreams of the sea
    No time for dreams, we labor now with freezing hands
    possibly it is only my anxiety, but we have grown spines.

    Are our hearts protected by spines?
    Protection? Or causing tears
    where are the boy’s hands?
    Won’t they heal me with a single pass over my skin?
    Has it dried? The place where I once lived in the sea?
    We are afraid to voice it, but we long for each other’s touch.

    That kiss, that touch
    Those spines…
    Mean hurtful spines, they never came but for the disappearance of the sea
    water drenches my face, tears
    Malice makes tremors under my skin
    I’m reaching out with forsaken hands

    I can feel his hands, soft to the touch
    they quail my fears and utter to me promises of the sea that warm my chilly skin.
    Shrink those spines in my heart.