dream circles

DREAM CIRCLES

by amanda wan

everything turns on an end point.
i wonder what is worse, the pain of
not knowing or unknowing
that end,

that end i imagined holding
halved seashells against the green
rumination of the sea, finding them
broken left on land but whole
in the folds of my coat as i carried
them towards you, waiting on the
edge of the beach.

stranded in a timeless summer, still
you move like the sea,
briny overgrowths of past lives
whirling around your ankles.

you a glowing fish, drowning
at the bottom of my mind, belly swollen
with salt and lightning and the
lifetimes it takes to understand
each lift and gasp of these
ancient waves.

if we share our breath to speak our pain
they mistake us for one body, single
stain against horizon undoing itself
in protest of worlds out “there,” few
words left but: old sadness weighs
into grief. grief sinks into 
bone. bone echoes into blood.
blood haunts into tears.

an unfurling expanse of
empty blue sky pulls me apart,
leaving a lack, a failure
to describe how in every version of
this dream i cannot remember if
i ever reach you and deliver 
proof of having walked
the shore.

still we speak through our silence.
i do not yet exist 
in your language.
you do not yet exist
in mine.