Paroles

My friend speaks of bridges like lifelines. They seem like doorways to the other side, to another life, perhaps to an end, to the beginning of rest.
When she speaks of bridges, she wants me to hear poetry in the sound of her body slapping against sea, to think.."finally chubby, huh?" when I see her bloated body wash up the shore, to be happy that for the first time, she can consent to giving her body away. It's the illusion of control. She'd give herself to the waves because she heard it ask nicely.

I spend my days trying to convince her that there's nothing poetic about death. That jumping is better as an exercise. That bridges have rails so you can remember that there is always something to hold on to.
That body slapping against water is best left a phrase. Cause the actual sound, the actual sound is more than an onomatopoeia. And if water could speak that sound would say:
I give up.
I don't.
I recall the times I would tuck a cry for help in the metaphors of an abstract poem, pin them to the walls of Facebook, close my eyes and wait for the first flood of likes that meant, I was accepted and alive.
The first time I had a stranger tell me my poetry inspired him, I felt a lifeline pass from his words to my already shrinking soul, pull me into myself.
And soon I became a metaphor for a sunflower in full bloom,
But still it is 6 days before a Sunday, on most days wilting is all I know how to do.

I would not wilt today. I can write my weary bones into a giant's foot. I can dress me into a poem, and liken my frown to a dashing look, give me an alluring gaze. In a different poem, saying I am full of laughter would not be a hyperbole. I can swallow a line littered with alliteration and sprout a nebula.

I can.. come alive.

When my friend speaks of bridges like lifelines, I speak of poetry.