MITCH CAVE

Tewantin, Queensland / Poet

Self-isolation

Mitch Cave is a poet based on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. His work has appeared in Cordite, Rabbit, Voiceworks, Plumwood Mountain, Hecate, and numerous others.

𓅔

I have always been afraid of the ocean, and now that the world is in a state of terror, I am dreaming of it. Each night produces small but vivid episodes, each in relation to the same setting: a beach. I’ve never visited this beach before in my waking life, though somehow, in vivid detail, it is engraved into my subconscious. Sometimes I am on a boat, leaving the shore behind. Perhaps I am searching for something, or leaving for good. Other nights, men are fighting each other in packs on the sand around me. Lanterns are dangling in the illumined palm trees as they strike each other. I leave the scene and enter a small beachside apartment complex. It has a brick interior and there are young men drinking alcohol on couches in the middle of the room. Furniture — tables and chairs stacked on top of each other — is scattered in front of them, stretching to the doorway which prevents me from entering. I am with two, maybe three women who are my friends, though something prevents me from looking at their faces. They introduce me to everyone inside at the front door briefly and then we leave. Perhaps this is what dreaming from a past life feels like, or perhaps, my next life to come. Or maybe my dreams are just a confluence of my anxieties, each a warning, or perhaps, a lesson to be learned at such a time.


(19/4/2020)