Tell Us, Little Girl, What Is It Like to Sing for Yourself for the First Time?

*Write Club Post*

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There’s a girl who sings to the sea.

She likes to walk barefoot on the shore

To find seashells when they pierce her skin.

Her voice is a beauty no one hears,

The waves pushing her under have become too loud.

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She wears a white dress stained with guilt,

A dainty gold necklace dipped in shame.

And a shawl of solace wrapped around her shoulders

To warm the shivering bodies

Of the ones who choke their way back to the surface.

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Her hands are bound by encumbrance,

Her heart too heavy to break free.

She whispers a solemn melody to the sky’s reflection,

Black tears crawling down her cheeks.

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The ones calling out from the waves,

They tell each other hugs are the soul’s best medicine.

So every time the crickets chirp,

She pulls her knees to her chest, sand between her toes.

As her lips retrace her greatest flaws,

And her tears remember the weight of regret.

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She always comes back to the tide and sings,

Sings to the salt entombed between fallen raindrops,

Sings to the sunken boats tied down by entangled kelp.

Sings to the sea’s casualties,

Letting them know they aren’t alone.

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She sings until her voice is weak,

Until her mouth moves without sound.

Until her eyes dry in the breeze,

Until her feet grow tired of stepping on cracked shells.

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It’s only then she’s noticed, leaning on a rock,

Waves licking the blood off her heels.

Her song is nothing more than an estranged growl,

But they call her beautiful.

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They raise her up like some kind of trophy,

Call her a goddess sent to heal everyone else’s sorrows.

When her silent voice is heard,

They call it magnificent, a true work of art.

Only angels should sound like heaven.

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Love swallows her as they adorn her head with petals

From the flowers they grew for themselves.

But not love of her, or who she’s become,

Raised from the broken shards of seashells.

But love of what she can give them.

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Her old dress is gone, she dresses in silks and furs now.

Shawls are only decoration.

She no longer sings to the ocean,

She sings to the sailors lost in it’s depths.

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She parades around, queen of the suffering.

She sees their pain and takes it away,

Because that is what a Celestial does.

She does not cry with them, she does not comfort them,

She is stronger than that.

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Love of the Goddess becomes greed.

The voyagers keep coming back to have her hum away their sins.

She is angered, tired of being taken for granted.

She is not a just a bottle to be abused.

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Though blackened tears no longer color her face,

Invisible ones replace them as betrayal gets more bitter.

The scared soles of her feet tingle, remembering shattered conches.

She hasn’t sung, like really sung for a while now.

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She hesitates before a few notes breach her mute lips,

A tune that doesn’t have to heal a demanding sinner.

Soon her rusty voicebox is singing melodies even the sun hasn’t heard.

A smile tugs on her lips as she remembers the sweet sound of sorrow,

Her voice reclaimed.

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But they can’t hear her singing anymore

And they mock her for it.

Claim her to be a false prophet,

Cast her out to let someone else decide her fate.

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She returns to the familiar taste of salt where she finds

Her old guilt heavy dress feels a little lighter than the robes,

Weakness feels more free than strength.

Her voice no longer feels like a burden the world has to carry.

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There’s a girl who sings to the sea.

She does it for her, not for them.

She finds peace where others have found turbulence.

And though the waves rake her in,

She doesn’t feel like drowning anymore.

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-The Splintered Pencil