sometimes i like to forget
that the salt that stains her cheeks
is there for a reason
that her sweet siren song
is just a bitter trap and that she doesn’t love me
she can’t
love me
i have a purposeful tendency to forget
that the salt that coats her lips
is there as a warning
because like the unforgiving ocean
and the feeble mariner
loving her
should not
be taken
lightly
and neither should the scales of her skin
and sometimes that’s perfectly okay
because to be honest
even when she’s not singing her siren songs
i’ll dim the lantern in my lighthouse
so that she’ll crash against my shores
because i promise you,
there’s something there
something that beats in her chest
in the ebb and flow of the tide
when things are still
and she is calm
i hear it
and i think it’s a heart
i swear
it’s a heart
and maybe
one that knows how to love me
maybe
behind her back barrier marsh
isn’t coarse sediment
it’s heart strings that puppet her
in the same way they puppet me
or maybe it’s not a heart
maybe it’s just birds in her chest
or the lapping of waves beneath her skin
preparing for a tsunami,
preparing for my shipwreck
and maybe she’s a siren but maybe i’m her song
maybe i can destroy innocent men
and capture the heart
of gentle maidens and mariners
maybe i can be the catalyst behind the white caps
that drown out the cacophony escaping her mouth
at every chance she gets
but i don't want to be
i want to be the sand
that pulls her waves into a gentle lapping
i want to be the one
who softens her song
