When I leave, to a land that knows not of grief,
don't go looking for me. I’ve gone to a dreamy island
lost between reality and eternity. I still crave you
like the ocean craves the shore. I’ll drown in your amber eyes
with no desire to come up for life. I’m okay if you leave me
in the deep with nothing but the memory of us to anchor.
I know I promised I’d stay. Our forever slipped like silk
somewhere you couldn’t follow on the water’s edge
where the sea kisses sand, a slice of western sun is wedged
between Heaven and Earth. A symphony of colors explodes.
Oh, is this how lust was born?
I’ll sit beneath a palm while you forget I know what the Moon
looks like when the Sun can’t hold her. Craters like gaping shadow
smudges reduced to reaching with so much wanting. I know
you loved me. The mighty tidal grieves, sloshing over your screams.
The ocean that surrounds me is heavy-hearted.
Did you ever find me?
When I leave, I hope you’d remember me. I saw a mirage once
A kaleidoscope made up of glistening hues that came to me
in the silhouette of you. I called out, cupped palms on salted lips,
and was greeted from behind by my own voice coated thick with
island heat. I made the palms speak like you. And I swore you spoke
to me, just beyond reach. There was never a sweeter melody.
Do you know what novelty tastes like?
I’d sleep under immortal nebulas, lulled with sounds both hollow
and whole. It is here, this expansion of removed time, that I laid
between the layers of pastel skies. I lived now in quiet calmness.
I let each sunset soak into me raw if only to scrub my skin blind,
raw turned pink like the tides just before the sun prepares to rise.
I needed to be lost; I didn’t mean to be lost from you.
Jasmine Celeste studied in University of Central Florida’s Creative Writing Program. She is an active member in the National Society of Leadership and Success, who believes in the community of literature. She is a hopeful, unpublished poet based in Miami, Florida. She is her happiest when immersed in fields of nature with poetry or a riveting fiction. You can find her on Instagram @jasmineceleste_
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