A bushfire in the ocean

I soak up that feeling—
pooling black oil
stinging my fingertips.
it coerces me to stay:
a bit of black tar 
in my lungs 
feels safer 
than a smokehouse 
burning through every organ
if I leave.

Some suffocation—
that is the cost of comfort.
No matter how hard I scratch,
it’ll always feel like a splinter
burrowing deeper,
solidifying in tissues
I haven’t used 
in a very long time.

I look 
like a bushfire in the ocean—
all red-hot emboldenment
moving against that daily deep
sea ecosystem.

We wait to cross—
a red hum
at the streetlight
mimics the cicadas’ 
summer cries—
it reverberates
deep in my bones,
like the stares.

It is always there—
in streetlights, buildings, and bars.
staring. cicadas. that red hum.
A comforting hand
on my shoulder
squeezing too tight.

Do I threaten while I wait?
everything is a challenge:
hair, clothes, eyes, voice.
Do I wait or do I go?
every choice burning 
in a douse of water.

That bushfire
courses under 
my clothes, 
this heat—
it pulses like a heart 
yearns for air.

The light turns
but all I see is red, 
blazing kindle 
waterlogged into an
endless stream 
of black and blue

If I leave, 
I might burn up, 
but if I stay,
I’m a bushfire in the ocean.

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Cover image by Mark Weich