Salt burns the lungs that howl into the cold.
Darkness consumes, a feverish toxin.
A symphony of the seas starts.
Never to end.
A young lady stows away, enamored with the pirate's life.
The ship rocks uneasily, unsteadily. How could a child without her sea legs cope? Why would one such as her need them? How much more could she be worth than bad luck?
Her nausea wins out, a loud mess made. She is heard. She is found.
All she wants us to know the pirate's life. But it isn't a life she is meant to have. There is only one life left for the filthy stowaway.
"Walk the plank! Walk the plank!" Held at gunpoint, she is worth only misfortune. Each step forward is a step towards the end of this life.
She refuses to simply resign. She refuses to end her own life.
The bullet to her broken heart does so in her stead.
What voice does the salt forge? What sort of red would burn into the eyes of the unfortunate soul?
The sea cradles the souls of the damned and raises them as its own. It teaches them to sing, to seduce as revenge wrought against the so-called kings of the waters.
In truth, it is the kingdom of the wronged, the damned. With alluring songs and beckoning gazes, skin glistening from the healing waters, their eyes vast pools of shimmering aquatic light.
Together, they end those who ended them.
Hearts are drowned, halted entirely.
Packed and weighted with salt and fear.
The symphony of the seas plays on,
and the shores remain never the wiser its sins.
- Evelyn Raczynski
No comments:
Post a Comment