About My Fear Of The Ocean

About My Fear Of The Ocean. 

It’s not of the creatures lurking within,

or the bubbling tsunamis—

the sight that makes me shiver 

is the way the tides caress the shore 

like clockwork, like the hands 

of an obsessive lover.

I fear the water 

when it washes away

the pearls and shells, 

leaving only their shadows

to stain the shoreline.

I am afraid for the shore 

because it refuses to budge 

even as it bleeds blue, 

as rocks and glass

erode into sand, into fragments 

of what they had once been.

This is what I dread—that one day,

I will piece together my reflection 

using the debris in the sand

and see my shadow rendered 

in the shape of the shoreline;

that I will cling to the very things

that destroy me, the way

the shore clings to the waves, 

a wound clings to a blade;

that I will keep falling in love

with something that takes and 

takes from me, all while 

I do not realize what is happening

until I am half of who I used to be.