Words: Tatianna Kalb (she/her)
“4”
A sandcastle built in a thunderstorm,
and never a moment of dread.
When I looked out ahead,
as the sky above me bled,
I saw a gray sea that churned,
heaving waves being upturned.
I felt a drizzle in my heart,
(a natural place for it to start),
then sensed its beat stalled
as the sea ahead called.
Its surface was contorted,
the natural rhythm was thwarted.
My teeth crunched on sand,
salty jewels in my hand,
but the sea sounded like home
where blankets were made of foam.
I sang with the sea,
craving that vicious intimacy,
until finally there came a time
when it became aware of me.
“12”
It seems the storm followed me, across years and lands,
until it found me far from the shore, and in
the heart of the tempest.
I heard of it in stories,
about the vengeance that could consume it,
how it would thrash at boats just like mine
and leave heroes to waste away
in the deep.
I prayed to Poseidon, I even closed my eyes,
but I named the god too late, my
soul was trembling.
Fury so intense
and aimed
right at me.
As the waves kept calling out to me, as the storm had its way,
I felt my skin begin to smooth,
my hair to recede, my teeth to sharpen.
I was as gray as the sea that reached out to me, I was as fierce
as the howling that rattled the sky.
My boat wasn’t a home,
my form had become too great.
But I was welcomed down below,
where the sea was determined to keep me.
It greeted me with open arms,
it told me I was pretty.
Its magnificent creation.
Its creature of
the deep.
