A Poet's Message In A Bottle

If you are reading this, I’m not alone.

   Maybe the bottle drifted past your keel.

Maybe you found it shattered on a stone.

   If you are reading this, that means I’m real.

There was a great storm; I was tempest-tossed.

   I woke up here, all bitter and half-drowned.

I live my days accepting that I’m lost,

   And spend my nights dreaming of being found.

This life is like a bone chewed by despair.

   Hope makes you sick, like alcohol that’s cheap.

And yet I shout my name like it’s a flare

   And toss my daily bottle in the deep—

      Not to be rescued, only to be known

      For something greater than my life alone. 

 

Copyright 2015 Matthew J Wells

Thanks to Dawn Kamerling for the prompt