First and Last Say

I wake every morning to the octopus in my chest.
Though I claw and tear at my skin, he refuses to slip back home to the sea.
He feeds on the meaning of the life, devouring all trace.
He is beautiful and I love him.
But I'm starving to death.

Maybe there is no meaning – only a letting go of purpose or plan. My body's dull thud moves through the world, making supper here, washing clothes there. Work, garden, read, sleep, repeat. For a decade I knew how to move, where to go, how to be a conduit of love. I knew sanctuary and ecstasy. I swam in heron blue and slept under raven wing.

Then the octopus moved in, preferring my clam-shell chest over others. No ink for pages, only for camouflaging a heart's truest desires. I am exhausted and irritated at the same time. Me, this involuntary host to he who has the first and last say. Or she; does it matter?

I wooed a man too long. That time has past. Now I wrestle with a cephalopod swimming in my current, and I hope to push one of us into Oblivion. I cling to dank moss along the sun-lost lip of the river. Hear my prayer.