the Titan beckons me, the giant beating heart of this sunken city. calling to me from beneath the sea, beneath my consciousness.

hidden.

she sleeps in the shallow shore waters. the rip current is her lullaby. i’m searching but it’s a full moon and the tide is hungry.

wild-eyed phantoms dance along these beaches. their skin shines in the dark. their mouths are wet and wide, lapping up the liquid moonlight. intonations in place of conversation. lust in place of love.

the death of Self, isn’t that the ideal? to be completely and totally consumed, created anew as one yet many. and in this throbbing darkness, the crowd becomes a single entity, the religion becomes reality.

but i’m a slim slow slider. a sneak. just a shallow stream swimmer. i’m taking off my shoes and mask, pulling a drop of fire from this flask, and covering myself in flowers. i’ll float downstream on this funeral pyre, and in the morning maybe i’ll find her, hidden where she told me to look.

“i used to be everything” she told me once, and i understand now what she means. i lean into the morning breeze, as broken-mirror beaches cut my feet. it seems i missed the rapture, but its fine –  there will be another next week.

(koh phangan, thailand)