The cave draws u in like a breath

walls corrugated like the cartilaginous ribbing of a trachea

and just as wet                 algaed slick phlegmatic

the limestone bedrock vivisected

by years              a hairline fissure concedes

to cavernous lack                this sanctuary of emptiness

u yield to it                        spelunking         

perhaps

           u are in love

u are not in love                   u are in a cave

a reassurance of creamy calcite catacombing u amid its fossils

clamp ur parts bivalve or whorl ur-self gastropod

whatever it takes to get some                         stillness

               from what’s inside u

u merciless u selfish unfurling ur fervency

in nobody’s cathedral

these crumpled aeons of shell

forgetting the shapes they once held

& how much can u bend to fit the whittled geometry of a fondness

                which turns ur interior to delicate meat          a mollusc

& are u prepared                 to petrify like that

cinched long after the tender flesh dessicates

o soft salt heart so edible

dare u opalise for this?

hopping from stone to stone when slipshod u plunge

ur accidental sole into the water

the cave chokes on u                             

heaves                 its echoes of life

u are going so deep so quickly

u are losing the light

Rebecca Hawkes

Rebecca Hawkes is a painter and perpetual student who completed an MA in non-fiction writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters in 2016. You can find more of her work in Starling, Sport, Mayhem, and elsewhere via www.rebeccahawkesart.com.