salt.

sometimes i feel like i am made of the ocean,

all water, no body, just sinking into myself.

sea salt tears drown me like nothing else,

rocky waters pull me further into the blue.

(i wonder if icarus knew that his nightmare

would become my dream)

water is so vast. endless and beautiful.

so unlike the land that is grounding, forcibly rooted.

i ask to be reborn in the tides,

birthed like aphrodite in the sea foam.

salt crystals dig themselves deep beneath my fingernails,

deeper still are the rolling waves that crescendo in my lungs.

i have yet to grow gills.

salt water still hurts my eyes, burns my throat.

i am made of the ocean,

but the salt does not love me.

i wade into shallow waters to convince poseidon that the sun did not want me,

that the wax dripping from my back was deliberate,

that i was born ignorant and burned my own wings

to baptize myself in the sea.

with eyes wide open,

i sink into myself.