A Horizon in Turmoil

Take the bloody organ couched within my breast,
and remove it with the passionless act of forceful rape.
Take my heart and grate it, grind it, squeeze and stretch it.
Inject it with poison, lucid and potent
until my extremeties are pulsating with the savory juice,
and my body is a walking shroud of self-deprecation and loathing.

A hearty sailor with a love for salt-filled air, I was often invited in
to the captain's quarters. There we conversed, laughed, philosophized,
and cared with a love deep as the bowels of the sea upon which we lived.
The captain is my friend still, but where am I now?

I cling to a solitary buoy, which is my testimony.
Alone, circumscribed within the horizon of the sea.
Adrift.
The flashing beacon mounted atop the welded steel girters flashes,
fades,
flickers,
and is left sparkless.
My waning soul conjures sweat and tears,
the salt of which mixes with the frothy ebbing waves
as they lap up into my frayed garment.
Mingling the outside sodium poison solution
with that which I have released from within,
the osmosis of death waxes within and without.

A passing ship offers to take me in tow,
but extends no fellowship to bring me aboard.
Not even as cargo.

Captain, where am I? High Priest of Good Things to COME,
and yet here I am, ragged and scorched by the sun and my mind,
wanting a drop from Lazarus' fingertip to moisten my lips
for even a moment, with saltless water.

My captain, my friend, I deserted post and swam in unsafe waters.
But am I beyond deliverance? Where is thy ship!
With sextant and Polaris, once I could command any vessel,
tame the harsh waves of life and Satan himself!
The vessel of my life, it was, navigated by me,
but captained by my friend; that captain.

That beating heart still beats for you, and my loyalty,
well...where is that loyalty?
I pledged it to you and wandered away.
"Prone to wander."

This lifeless shroud waits. The fruitlessness of longing and waiting!
Yet my fortitude is sapped by despair.
Despair be damned! The captain of my chosen vessel,
the object of my desires,
is the Lord of the seas! Give me the energy to move the currents,
direct my testimony,
and though my sun-baked body is naked and weak,
dying,
let my beacon flicker with light once again.
Save me, my captain savior. Find me,
take back my mind and heal it.

Lazarus, a ship-mate in days passed,
extend your finger, that the water of life may invigorate me,
that resilience may preface my rescue,
that effort and hope will tighten the sinew of my neck,
that my eyes may peer heavenward again,
to see my friend captain and his majestic ship.
A drop of salt-free water?
Just a drop, I implore you.