The hauntingly vast, deafening water
that I can hear roaring from miles away.
Waves crash against rubble on the shore like
a twisted thunderstorm, the kind that you
heard as a child and would hold onto your mother’s
hand, thinking it could actually harm you.
You never knew as a child how powerful the waves
actually were, you’d throw yourself into the unknown
without a care in the world, thought maybe you could
actually be a mermaid or something. I remember
thinking the water would never wrong me,
I would never drown.
It’s only now in my early adulthood
I see and feel how easy it is to get swept away,
out to sea. To never return, to unconsciously get
caught in the undertow, sinking slowly and profoundly.
Wondering how can something so transparent,
so malleable be able to take everything from me;
submerge my soul under its gliding tone, pour itself inside
me so easily, suffocating every organ I can think to name but
you can’t win no matter how hard you struggle,
its waves are impenetrable.
You verse 10 million miles of ocean and thousands of feet underneath.
You’re nothing compared to it, it doesn’t care about you,
it’ll swipe you up in just one roar and won’t think to stop
and ask if you’re still breathing.
You are the freckle on a sun-kissed face, a single kiss
compared to all the lips he had kissed before…
the ocean,
I mean.