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