Me? Me is a mystery. Me meant being jostled and rocked and tossed around until me meant emptiness, gallons and gallons of water hardening my skin. My edges crystalize with each crashing wave. I’ve been sharpened by the cries of babies and the needs of others. Only to reveal buffed corners of amethyst and agate and my grandmother's sapphire that was locked in a safe. Me found fullness again by the little girl's voice who’s finding her way back to me from the sea. I anchored my sea rig and jumped in. The ocean belongs to me. I finally have my scales. Bring me your harshest storms, I could handle her rage. I light up like a lamp in the dark and finally lay my head to rest. Come find me. I won’t budge ‘til you come home.
You? Oh holy hell you. What a mess. What could be more chic than a mystery. What could be more chaotic than pulling back the tacky layers of yellow and gangrene. The tentacles that object towards me in times when you feel threatened, the inky phosphorus that moistens your rage. An octopus of madness, wielding a lacquer of black when you pull me under. You’re a force. You think too highly of yourself that you forget about the might of others. You forget that I am unmovable. You forget that our suffering is what brought us together. You forget about how much I’ve grown. I love you. You know that’s how I feel about you. You’re disgusting and I love it. The struggle is real and it’s always worth it; You smell like salt and sweat, you taste like a man, I see heaven everytime I’m with you.
Them? They drool and pant and suck at the teet of us. They are starving with numbness. They feast at the suffering of lost fish, thirsty for all their mistakes. Everything bad about us is good to them. They cant wait to insert their teeth in our necks to draw our blood. They can’t wait to watch us pitter patter on the ground, while we beg them to stop being such trolls. They know we’re awful but they crave it. But I mean, look at us? Terrible. They’re just dumb savages wasting their time. This place is infested with them.
My scales match my eyeshadow: irredescent pink that turns a slight green when the sun catches it. My hair is thick and lustrous and a few shades lighter in the summer. The water is clear and calm and stretches beyond. I am buoyant on the surface, long and flexible underwater. My scales are my stripes, I’ve earned them. My kids can’t reach me out in the sea, they haven’t earned theirs yet. I left them with a conch, so while I’m out at sea and they yearn for the sound of my voice they can pick up the conch and hear: Sit down right now and finish all of your chicken nuggets!!
I’ve transformed, now I inhabit the sea. I have found a sense of self that the Earth could not provide. The ocean is irritable and unexpected. Earth is predictable - boring, morbid, covered in grief and half melted. Earth has silly expectations like hey you should smile more, cover up your body more, don’t enjoy sex so much, and for the love of all that’s holy please stop being so emo all the time okay??
As it turns out, Earth has only two options for me; girlboss at the office or girlboss my kids at home. What happens to those who actively deny the girlboss? Earth is a pretentious place, a shiny exterior and an interior lacking purpose. Flying saucers zoom by in hopes to land for a bathroom break and say NO THANKS IMMA HOLD IT TIL THE NEXT PLANET!
I’m a mermaid now, a goddess of the sea, if you will; The views are endless blues and greens. Girl dinners are eaten sans screaming toddlers, invertebrates sitting on a bed of seaweed. There’s bad Wi-Fi connection under 200 feet so I no longer feel weighed down by the news. My scales have a gorgeous patina. I am seen, I shine with my flowy hair and glimmering fishy body. I am one, a woman in a world of her own findings.
By day I subject myself to my fin and submerge as deep as I want. I have gills that make it all endless. What would it take to have a life of my own exploration? I have a fishy friend who follows me everywhere to write down my thoughts. He’s got a beak for a mouth and can’t really sound out words. Our days are mostly one sided: I talk, he writes. Pencils are obsolete out here so we use phosphorous ink.
By night I come to the surface so my heart can become the moon. My heart is the moon that watches over my children. I watch them as I hear the crashing of waves and witness iguanas scouring for the mangoes that have fallen along the bay. I discover a whole world when I’m alone. A win, and a loss; to become a woman of your own findings you need to go to a place your kids can’t go. It just so happens that my place is the sea. It just so happens that I had to become a mermaid to find myself.
When was the last time your body submerged into the sea? Did it hug you? Did you breathe so deep your breath could be felt in your toes? Did you find other mysterious mermaids who also despise to girlboss?
When Earth inhabitants speak of me it is now expressed with much disapproval and a tone of distaste. Oh her? Yea she frolics in the ocean and talks to fish now. She’ll probably get eaten by a shark soon. She’s like Moana if she never found Maui. Sorry to her.
Put yourself in my place. Another year around the sun, another year still trying to understand half of the world's mysteries. Nothing is in its proper place, the adventure I crave feels shallow. My mind plays a tense soundtrack all night while I worry about my kids. All of a sudden there are more wildfires. Summer is dragging, the heat is dragging, my smile is dragging. We’re expected to girlboss in these elements? Trust me, you’d run to the ocean for some relief too.
Many people come to the sea and get lost but many findings can happen once you stop trying to look for it. That’s when you know you’re a mermaid, when you allow yourself to be misunderstood, when you allow yourself to be.
Stephanie, this was incredible (and beyond relatable) - so gorgeous.
"My scales are my stripes, I’ve earned them." This piece was stunning, as always. I love mermaid Stephanie!