Member-only story
Into the Great Unknown of Your Ocean’s Depths
Prose Poetry
That summer, we drank up the air as if we were drowning sailors who were lured by siren songs.
The salt of the water tasted of tears shed long ago.
I imagined we were part of a fairy tale that had a good ending instead of a sad one meant to be a tale of warning to children.
Because where was the warning with you? Your eyes were mischief-laden, bitter blue like dark berries strung up on the highest branches, and hazy as if the sunlight left you intoxicated.
Every moment felt like a miracle.
Your smile saved me again and again and again.
How was I to know what lurked behind your eyes?
You never told me, not a thing, as if you sustained yourself with a bounty of secrets.
All I knew was that summer, brief like the chime of a clock, when I had no thought for where after would lead.
It was one thing to reach an ending — but it was another to step beyond that point and follow a path no one talked about in all those love songs.
We didn’t know better because we were young.
We should have known better because we were young.
