songs about water

lately, sleep is either all i have, or unatainable.
tonite, it's the latter.
nights like these in Sidney, i would walk to the pier, look out over the ocean. at night, it was black, like a sky without stars. it was the safest place i knew. you could look into it forever and never find anything more beautiful, dispicable, or bewildering than yourself. nothing with which to compare yourself and come up short. nothing to which to liken yourself in ways you don't deserve. i would sit down near the water, on a ledge beneath the visible plane of the pier, and in my invisible nook of damp wood, i would pray. sometimes the wind, the waves would invite me to speak my prayers aloud, echoing my frustration, my turbulence, and i would tell it all i could in the time we were allowed. sometimes, my prayers would be silent, like the ocean, empty on the surface but inderneath alive in ways too complex to be understood. two unsearchable depths reaching for one another in the dark and sharing secrets too deep for anyone to see.
i miss the ocean.

tonite, i walk instead to a place out of my past. a park i once loved.
there is no peace in childhood for a man forbidden to stand in the park.
i can feel their eyes, unfortunate spies. my love is not for them.
uneasy, i proceed.

i find a spot on the hill, a place i know i stood when i was 7 and the world was something that i didn't have to understand because it loved me and that was all i needed. standing there now, i whisper tears of mourning, thinking about all of the things that once were, all of the beautiful things labeled fragile in a language i never learned to read. i kneel, then slowly fold myself into a crevice full of gras, and lie there for a moment, thinking how simple it would be to just remain curled here in this ball until the end of time, if only time would end tonite.
i am not there long enough for the end to come. or maybe i simply wasn't quite ready for it, just now. i pluck a strand of grass from the patch in front of me and wonder, if i were to eat it, of this place would become a part of me in some concrete way, if i could carry this peace with me until i am too ole any longer to remember the taste of grass in the night. instead, what happens is my eyes, wandering across the immediate landscape, fall upon an empty condom wrapper.

so it's true, then.
everything is broken.
i feared as much.
feeling slightly soiled, now, i stand, the hill's surface no longer offering the simplicity and hope i want, anything that has not been spoiled like a fruit i once couldn't get enough of, but that is now inedible.

memory.
childhood.
innocence.
something of each remains, as shards will remain, no longer capable of holding the original shape, bearing no likeness to the form they wore while they were whole. now they are capable of hinting only, clues, scraps of evidence of something larger, something more beautiful, alluding to the grandeur of loss in tongues fragmented beyond repair.

my name is shard.
i remember no other name but this.
i was not born this way.
forgive me.

i am home now, in that same way i whale might say it were home upon arriving in a tank in some aquatic zoo and being taught to do tricks for food.
i wonder if my performance matters.
either way, i hunger.

i miss the ocean.

some lyrics i can't stop thinking about (edited mostly for lenghth and repetition) from a song called pet by perfect circle. it's much more powerful with music:

don't fret precious i'm here
step away from the window, go back to sleep.

lay your head down child
i won't let the boogeyman come
counting bodies like sheep
to the rhythm of the war drums

pay no mind to the rabble
pay no mind to the rabble
head down, go to sleep
to the rhythm of the wardrums

pay no mind to what the other voices say
they don't care about you
like i do. like i do.
safe from pain, and truth, and choice,
and other poison devils
see they don't give a fuck about you. like i do.

just stay with me.
safe and
ignorant.
go back to sleep.
go back to sleep.

i'll be the one to protect you from
your enemies and a voice of reason

i'll be the one to protect you from
your enemies and your choices, son
they're one in the same
i must isolate you
isolate and save you from yourself.

swaying to the rythm of the new world order and
count bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums

the boogeymen are coming
the boogeymen are coming

keep your head down now, go to sleep, to the rhythm of a war drum

stay with me
safe and ignorant
just stay with me
i'll hold you and protect you from
the other ones.
the evil ones
don't love you son.
go back to sleep.