Send My Blessings to the Sea

A Prose Poem

Photo by Dmitriy Ganin from Pexels

there are whispers in the waves, and I believe that only I can hear them — the swish and sway of water, a language from a time back when sailors feared that sirens lurked below to lure them to graves beneath the sea

there are howls in the winds, and I know that their hungry voices call to me — the touch and gone-away feel of the breeze, the desolation like a hollow space in your chest as you struggle in sorrow to breathe at ease

there are calls from the earth, and I pretend not to hear their moans — the way they mimic the words of departed loved ones and the final goodbyes uttered in gasps and starts that never finished, lost on a dying breath

the waves and the winds and the earth know me well, and into the sea I step — just once, for a moment, it won’t hurt — but the ocean is not kind to me

water and sand and seaweed take me under, and I know I am but just one sacrifice to the whims of something so much greater than I am

I am just a gasp in the universe — there one moment, gone the next, never to be heard again

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