My bones sing out its trauma: paper boats and dead love
Stowaway in the erosive bed of my pink.
Old friends stick like barnacles to my neck
stiff from the guilt of unanswered phone calls
And bottled messages that remain in my throat.
I’ve memorized the colors of the horizon,
Have caught the rain in my sail;
I have learned to kiss sharks and steal their teeth.
This unquenched tongue reaches for the moon,
While my toes curl in to the fossils of
my ancestors, disapproval clear as the sunken ships on
Their sunburned faces.
Red Sea woman. sea devil queen.
They call my cynicism a pretty lionfish.
Knowing I am water volcanoes, and ready
To make a noose of beautiful moments -
Still I am haunting the nets of fishermen
The sirens song tucked in to the corner of my eyes
I remember where to put my hands to quiet the world
How to swallow insults and spit them out
Harder than pearls,
The land taught me to turn my mind into a maze
Of stingrays and killer whales.
And these pirates think they can crack the ocean in half?
Let them know
I am staring Leviathan in the eye.