monstrous-existences

[monstrous-existences]

A Thank You Letter to the Ocean

1,635 words

Dear Ocean,

My father used to call me a fish because I swam so much. Every chance I could get to flap my little limbs around in the water, I would take. Lakes, rivers, oceans, the local YMCA—all of it was a place for me to find myself. The water was like a second home to me, wrapping me in an embrace that was all encompassing.

One week a year, in the middle of summer, me and my siblings and parents and grandparents rent a house in Maine for a week. When I was younger, it was a house called Neph. The house was huge, with six bedrooms and a connected living-kitchen-dining-room. I always got to sleep in my favorite room, The Crow’s Nest, because it was a small room tucked in between the stairwell and the second story balcony. I don’t remember a lot about the room, but I do remember that I would stay in there for hours on end, reading books to my heart's content and listening to the waves outside. The ocean was so close, it was like a friend whispering to me during the day and a soothing lullaby at night.

To get down to the ocean, we had to go down a long path. It took about five minutes, and there were three ‘stages’ to go through. The first was a stone path, surrounded by larger rocks. It would scratch against my feet as I stumbled down, leaving small white marks against the pads of my toes and pebbles in my heels. The second was what I could only consider a tiny jungle. There were trees that seemed to stretch forever upwards, leaves covering the ground and pine needles everywhere. I think I saw a snake there once, and I saw more than a few small mammals in the underbrush. I loved soaking in the dappled sunlight, smelling the slightly damp air even though it hadn’t rained in days.It was more of a passing stage, connecting the first and third.  The third stage was sandy, with prickly grasses growing out of the shallow soil, stinging against my ankles as I waded through it. I hated how my feet would sink in and I would have to shake them out, staying wary of the leg-biting weeds.

Finally I would end up at the beach, the real beach. Chasing the waves became a favorite activity, playing tag with the surf and pretending every small disruption in the water was enough to send a boat crashing over. I would lay on my stomach and let the water wash over me, closing my eyes even though I had insisted on wearing goggles. I would gasp and cheer when I survived, like that was a surprise. 

When I was a child, I fell in love with the ocean and her glittering surface and her salty tears and her gorgeous teal horizon. When I was a child, before I knew what love was, I had succumbed to it, riptide dragging me under all at once. When I was a child, I created crab claw staffs and seashell jewelry and pretended that I was going to live there forever, that I would die on the white sands while the sea washed over my waning body. 

My final year there was when I was nine. I left the house on a Thursday, waving goodbye. My parents had already told me it was getting too expensive to come back, so I waved knowing I wouldn’t see it again for a long while, if ever. I can picture the peeling white walls and squeaking door, but even those memories are decaying with time. 

The next year we went to a different house. I have one distinct memory from that place. It was a few days before we left, and I woke up extremely early. Fog hung low over the lake we bordered, and the smell of pine and dew drifted through the air. I sat in an armchair on the open air porch, blanket draped lazily over my shoulders. The book in my lap was halfway done when I started reading, and I finished it that morning. My grandfather cooked us all breakfast and me and him ate while I read the finishing pages, waiting for anyone else to wake up and join us.

I think about that a lot, even though we didn’t go back to that place. It seemed so simple, to sit on the porch in silence and fall into another world. I wish I could go back and do it again sometimes. I swam less that year, opting to stay in the house. Lakes and oceans were different, one was a mystery filled with weeds and small fish while the other, a haven. 

The next place was a few years later, a small cottage called the Sea Witch. I liked it there, even if the doors creaked too loudly and the bathroom was freezing at night. The beach was rocky and I was obsessed with finding the perfect stones, ones smoothed by the spray so they wouldn’t poke at my palms when I picked up too many. Stones speckled with dark freckles, striped brown and red, soft cyan and green sea glass that I willed not to cut me when I held it.

It was a week I only have snippets of. I read the Hunger Games for the first time, swam little, and walked a lot. My sister and mom would lay in the hammock outside and I would take their pictures. It was a whirl of Candy Crush and mud sculptures and scratchy blankets. Most of my family didn’t like the house, for different reasons, but I remember it fondly. Something about the small cottage made me happy in a way I can’t describe, and leaving was melancholy.

I didn’t swim much that summer. I couldn’t find joy in it anymore, for whatever reason. The sea went from inviting to scornful. I didn’t like the way the bathing suits hugged my body, showing off every curve and extra flab. I think it was that summer I cut my hair short, just above my ears and tickling the back of my neck. I rejected invitations to return to the water, huddling up in the small bedroom I had once again claimed as my own and turning page after page after page. Waves of words passed through my mind, distracting me from the horrors in the world I had learned about. I would listen to the words at night to help me fall asleep, constantly forcing myself to be somewhere else.

The past four summers, I have changed. We have gone to the same house every time, somewhere we had all settled into. The house is simple and small. I sleep on the upstairs daybed, above the blankets, because it gets hot during the summer. In the morning I eat horrendous cereal, disgusting flavors advertised throughout stores. I don’t mind that much. I find the hammock outside—a different hammock, but a hammock all the same—and I lay in it. I walk in the sand and the woods and the grass and anywhere I want. I pretend I am not who I am, if merely for a moment. I pretend I am happy. If I try hard enough, the pretending fades away. 

I return a new person every time, with new experiences and new friends and even a new name. I learned to love and hate myself, one more than the other. I learned to climb cliffs and leave footprints in the woods and roast marshmallows and play D&D. I learned that I can be anyone I want to be, and the world will accept me as I am. I learned that I don’t need to cling to the person I once was, because he is not me, and I am not him.

It is being sold this year. Next year I will go somewhere else, somewhere I need to reintroduce myself to the knotted wood and the sand. I will sleep under unfamiliar blankets. There will be a different way to get to the beach, whether it be through a grassy lawn or a wooded jungle. The kids I played with for four years will not be there, the silence just another inconsistency. But the water will be there, the same as before, looking for the love that was there so many years ago.

I swam once at the house that doesn’t belong to me anymore. The water was too cold, and I grew disdainful. It’s not a joy to wrap myself in the embrace of the sea anymore. I have fallen out of love with the sea, and reposed the feelings somewhere that makes me feel guilty. I strive for the days where I could lie in the spray and waves and just be, create the smaller version of myself once more and become him again. Become the small child who would wear a bathing suit in the car and rush through the rocks and the jungle and the itchy weeds to the beach.

Sometimes we feel like two different people. We don’t share a name, a body, or a brain. We don’t share wants and needs and friends. I don’t know him anymore, but he exists somewhere inside me.

I let the ocean swallow me and hope it rubs away at the edges, smoothing me out like sea glass and making something I can handle without fear of cuts. I let my feet collect sand in hopes it reminds me of shells and crab claws. I listen to the waves crash and fear that I will never be who I was again, and a small part of me, soft as the faint smell of dew, tells me that’s okay.

Thank you.

[monstrous-existences]

Anticipation

I miss you.

Yes I know I can call you, haven’t I done that? Yes I know I can just text you, don’t you think I thought of that? Yes I know you’re in the other room, don’t you think I would have visited? Yes I know that you’re next to me right now, but

I still miss you.

It pulls on my nerves, spinning and twisting the endings Into knots and lyrics about you And everyone else I’ve ever known, because Even If I’ve known you, I won’t forever.

I still miss you.

I saw you today and I’ll see you again tomorrow morning.

I’ve seen you every day for the past year. I don’t know why that would change anytime soon. Maybe I’m just missing you now,

So I don’t have to later.

[monstrous-existences]

Remaking

Tears slip from our eyes. Slowly rolling down our cheeks, Rolling down, And away.

But where do the fallen tears go? Do they fall and soak into the earth, Or are they swallowed into streams? Or maybe

They fly. They fly away from us, from us all. Into the sky the tears run, And they turn into stars.

And then shooting stars Are the sky crying with us, Sending his tears back down. Returning our sorrow.

And the stars have been collected from the beginning. From the beginning of us, out tears Have shone down and Are remade into hope.

[monstrous-existences]

Small Towns

Nothing really happens here. Except for the odd Runaway dog, Turning up dead.

Streets lined with crumbling buildings, Red brick and concrete. New houses shine, Shine like jewels.

Dull factories, like spirits, Haunting old towns. Abandoned now, Bustling back then.

Tall statues rise over parks, Carved of stone and tears. A thought of war, And those who died.

Nothing really happens here. Except for the new, Pink graffiti, Made in the night.

[monstrous-existences]

Bones

Sometimes I see bones in the woods. Some are yellow and old, Some are still white.

I feel sorry for the creatures. Eaten and killed in vain, Just to survive.

I wonder if they deserved it. If they wanted to die. Maybe they did.

Sometimes I see bones in the woods. Flesh still clinging to bone. Covered in leaves.

The animals are dead and gone, With a cruel reminder Of how they lived.

To die.