xxxxx – the other night, thursday, when we got home and i undressed, two small marbles fell out of my bra (haha, weird). i vaguely recall receiving them from somebody in tranqs, as if they were a personal treasure, so i put them in the only place i could keep them since i had no pockets. i can’t remember for the life of me who they came from. but i wanted to keep them and now i’ve left them in my abandonded room. i miss you.

i am going back to an empty room and a narrow bed, the same i’ve had since childhood. it is all the same and it is unfamiliar. it is all empty. a bleak wintry desert road punctuated by a hopeful turning in the distance that will be a visit from you.

i watch lightning from the black window. we are above it, above the clouds, above the earth. we are somewhere between where you sleep and where i will set foot in my country for the first time in fourteen months. i wish it were not so soon. i wish we could go on like we had been. forever and forget the world. when we kissed that was the only existence i could fathom. the universe collapsed into your lips. your hair beneath my hands. a caress. i never want to open my eyes. i explode into stars. just our atomic particles streaming into space. sparking light in a dark dark world.

i cried on the ferry as we left the island behind. i watched the cays recede and disappear. i’ve left my home, again. i know so much about that place. it is embedded in my soul. the world beneath the water is as familiar now as anywhere. it is more intimate and secret than anything spoken aloud. what is waiting for us there. if we hadn’t turned in just the right moment that manta would fly as gracefully behind us with no thought of what we’d miss. i know this happens all the time. the creatures that surround me unseen i am comforted somehow. just the fact of their existence is enough. its enough. i always think, if i am patient, if i relax my mind and my eyes, the sea will share with me its secrets. what am i without the sea? i do not know anymore. i cried for leaving her.

utila is my home and so are you.