Ocean's Changeling

I have been fortunate to attend a talk by the local Plymouth poet Caroline Carver twice now and both times, she posed writing exercises which produced, for me, some splendid results. This second is by far my favourite.

Didn't make much sense

until I was deeper in it than before;

until it had me deeper in it.

What could I do to escape?

It pulled so I pulled back,

it drew me in and I didn't like that.

Stop and think for just a heartbeat.

The fish tickle and tease,

tempt me deeper.

Can I really take that leap

or do I fight it again?

Big Blue throbs in his bones

the hollow rib rumble that vibrates

all the water around me

and his breath pushes the tide

in then out,

I am pulled

in then out

to the vacuum of his lungs.

I am hungry now,

starving, even,

but not for food,

no, air is my food

and I think I shall never

taste it again.

The depth keeps increasing,

the pulse slapping me awake,

then the pressure

anesthetizing.

Deeper my fish tail takes me

and now things do not see

they breathe the deep

and eat the dead

and they want me for their own.

With haunting teeth,

light asphyxiated,

life then no more,

I am no more

and yet better than before.

The surface isn't me

and I forsake it for good.

They call me sea serpent

siren of suicide,

but I starve, sink, sing

and suck at the guts

of the ocean floor.