The Ocean

This is one of the first poems I wrote from my college creative writing classes in 2018. Readers, I hope you enjoy this little piece of me.

The painting she stands in front of is like 

the bottom of the ocean. 

It’s dark, it’s wet. All knowing 

yet knowing nothing. 

It calls out to her

like the voices that call out 

to her 

in the night. 

She reaches out to touch it. 

The hard

dried 

angry brushstrokes

are waves-

they scream in agony 

like the pain she feels 

when she looks in the mirror 

and sees her ragged face 

and choppy brown black hair. 

A remnant of who she was. 

Empty words echo 

from the vast nothingness. 

“I love you” they croon. 

“I love you” she whispers back 

but she cannot be heard 

over the wailing waves. 

So she sits and she weeps. 

They sound like him. 

Around her, there is nothing. 

No feeling, except the one she’s 

come to expect. 

Emptiness. 

She closes her eyes and once again,

explores the ocean.                       

She is weightless, swimming. 

Free

but not free. 

Treasures lie at the bottom 

like the secrets she holds close. 

Peel back the layers.

She hides them, 

not from the world, 

but she hides them 

from herself. 

She opens her weary eyes 

and studies the gold flecks

scattered across the painting 

like the gold she thought she saw 

in a dream once. 

The ocean taunts her. 

“Touch me” it seems to say.

And she remembers the way 

he touched her

in the dark.

Fumbling and quiet.

He wrapped around her, 

choking her like seaweed.

She was drowning

but she didn’t try to swim to the surface. 

She just let him win. 

She runs her fingers over the hardened green and blue paint. 

The grit she feels is like the Earth’s once great boulders,

worn away by centuries of torment. 

Nothing left 

expect insignificant 

grains of sand.