but it’s fine
guys, guys-

is she doing meetings tomorrow?
I think you have to email her before…
something along those lines…

But here’s the thing about asking for help:
when there is a lifeline dropped into the sea,
crusted salt will line your fingers
and you will lose your grasp.
there’s something brilliant about slipping in what makes tears tears
because the only difference between weeping and salivating
is the saline that you can taste on your tongue.

There is still a want.
Tears to the ground
spit to the demeaned
salt to the wounds,
liquid to the throat.

(You dribble in want
and you sob in hope.
Sadness is not inherently sad
that is the confusion about it all—
because in the depths of the seas,
in the heights of the skies,
there is weeping.
It is the yang of the ying
and the cry of the most brilliant
and it is the source of your complementary.)

but it’s fine. It’s fine. It’

They tell you that there is a lighthouse in the distance.
They tell you that there is a cliff that they drop the gulls carrying children off of
and they tell you that there will be a brilliance in the night to guide you.
They tell you that they made the clouds in the sky
to cover the stars you should follow
and yet they still tell you to shoot for them,
because they only know how to tell you to leave.

Salt is a harsh thing.
water is crystal clear in contrast.
Saline is a thing they grip beneath their nails
and it is something you fashion claws from.

The alley cat will hide in the dumpster with its scars and with its matted furs. Salt does that over time, similar to rust. When you bleed you cry, when you cry you bleed, and when it all feels numb it crusts over and it smells and stings. On your tongue they will both coat your throat in a layer of acid: something you will not be able to spit out until it fades. And the alley cat is someone who will stand still as it suffers; and the alley cat is someone who will bare their claws and growl and hiss before they can weep, and the alley cat is someone hydrophobic and yet still drowning, and the alleycat is a person on the stairs with eyes trained on the floorboards like they’re walking the plank, and they alley cat is

(And when did it become them…?)

This is not a cry for help.
This is not a plead for mercy.
This is a plead to suffer
so that the salt and rust
will make me numb.