I woke at the mouth of crystal-rimmed caverns,
residue caking my fingers, clumped under nails.
It had slipped so slick and transient over skin
when I'd plunged my hands into translucent blue
up to shoulders, neck, head, submerged entirely
breathing in ether, otherness, otherselves. How
many had I collected? How many were myself?
How had all that fluidity and freedom dried
up and crusted, sticky thick and dull? Dead.
I can feel them in my lungs, crowded, congested,
cramped into expanding apartments for uncounted
identities desperate for breath and expression.
I try not to cough for fear of losing some part
of myself I have yet to examine, unprepared for
the inevitable autopsy. I know I'm suffocating.
I swipe at salt-shards and shake free, spilling
second-hand selves across black sheets, gasping
for place and purpose and time.
Too early still, the room limned pre-dawn blue.
I should go back under and collect more, learn
more, harvest all the mes I'll never be, gather
them in my chest until they kill me again, wake
me again, crusted and confused,
half-alive & healing.