To dive deep,
So deep you are dying,
Is to find that you never needed the surface,
Or the shore,
To truly be alive.

We've all been drowning,
Our heads held down in the depths,
Struggling, fighting for the air we think we need,
Lost in unconsciousness,
The dream is dying in our darkness.

Then we can awaken,
Realizing that breath was just a fallacy,
That rebirth was the only way,
Resurrection is not rising from the dead,
Instead, it is life itself that never ends.

Rebirth is the only way,
To realize you were never born at all,
But in your own moment of conception,
You became a dream shared by the countless who came before you,
A shared lie that somehow we are special in our separateness.

The idea of man, that he is but a man,
The ideas of man, that it is all but living,
We flounder in our forgetfulness and accept our mediocrity,
Without ever knowing this is but an agreement we have made,
With those who have accepted these things before us.
Behold, though, the love you feel,
That not-so-subtle reminder,
That you know a soul somehow,
In a moment's wispy spark,
You see what is and what was in a flash.

What you feel, unknowing seer of the unseen,
Is a Universe igniting,
The flash, a beginning of something that has no ending,
The spark, a light of something that knows no darkness,
The emptiness recognizes itself in abundance.

So, be patient with me as I pause in wonder,
As I bend to inhale your fragrance,
Without ever disturbing a petal or your stem, allowing Nature to do Her thing,
I smile in the memory, 
I could not smell a thing as I was drowning.

Acidic is the water as it fills your nostrils,
The sting forever echoing in your mind, as you succumb to the silence,
Only broken by the sound of your heart beating,
Breaking, falling in shards to the bottom of the sea,
Scattered about by the currents all around you.

The flower...I wish to smell the flower...
I wish to dance in the fields once again,
Climb the hills and stand on top once again,
That view, seeing as far as my eyes will see,
If only I could inhale that air once again.

Awakened suddenly, I gasp at abundant air,
The scent of renewal fills my soul,
The fragrance of realization guides me to my stillest place.
My heart races in the endeavor,
My mind quiets at my holy command.

And I see...with my eyes now shut,
I can feel her all around me, 
Her whispers in my ear raising bumps on my skin,
Her soft touches bringing my soul to full attention,
Her presence filling my body as I inhale all that she is.

I realize she is not just the flesh,
But a memory...a reminder of who I am when I am awakened,
Of a soul shared before the moment I conceived of myself,
The moment I felt fractured from who I am,
When I was born, the best of me forgotten in their lessons.

I realize she is also the flesh,
The curves of her body call to me,
The subtle was her lips move when she speaks torture my veiled manhood,
My heartbeat rises in tune with the rest of me,
My nerves on fire as my soul begs for the reunion.

What is one cannot be denied, yet what separates us cannot surrender.
I enter what surrounds me, our breath joins in the ether.
Upon this altar we have gained eternity, yet in this moment of reflection,
We may lose heaven, be cast from the Garden forevermore,
To roam aimlessly through the deserts of our lives.

As the sands scorch my feet, I remember...
The cold chill of my ocean,
And as I struggle for air in my effort, 
I remember when there was no air to be had at all,
And I smile,
For the sweat that flows from my skin will not kill me.

I have already died, some would say,
And been reborn,
Reborn to love her, reborn to love the ocean
And the desert, and everywhere in between.
Yet, I've been picking at the blisters on my feet,
Wondering where the hell I put my shoes.

Through the blistering sands we've walked,
And the crushing depths for which we, the intrepid, have nearly drowned,
We stand tall, and ready for the storm,
Not as fodder for the winds to topple,
But as warriors who have slain the mighty beasts within.

Goodnight, to the dreams we go oft repeated in our slumber,
Awakened souls yet prone to the human need for sleep,
Gone forever to pass the night alone to another,
To discover the wicked, wandering flight we often sail alone,
Yet to never lose a moment's passing thought of our certain crashing. 

A crumbled mess we'll be,
Laughing in our misfortune, gazing at the stars together,
Hearing distant drums beat in the glow of an evening fire,
And we'll turn to each other in surprising synchronicity,
Sleeping, drowning, burning souls no more.