I need warm water.
Warm ocean or hot tub.
Need.
Bare chest, face slipping under water.
A poem I wrote on my way towards Peru:
Mud faeries and Mermen
I’ve missed being a mud faerie
eyes above the water
spaces of safety
and the green muck of my being.
He would come into the cave
as I bubbled beneath
the surface of my fears.
Mud monster
stomping and growling
while leaving me
white petals.
I close my eyes
above the water
and sink down
muck in my hair
into the waters below,
breathe deep
open my gills
look up to white petals
smile and swim away.
I am still his mud faerie
I will always be
as I open my gills and breathe in me.
***
I try too open my gills tonight but my layers are in the way.