Outrunning the Ocean
“I don’t think I can outrun the ocean, but I’ll try for your sake.”
-Samantha Hunt
After Samantha Hunt’s novel, The Seas, and Guillermo del Toro’s film, Pan’s Labyrinth
Oh nameless narrator,
are you truly a mermaid
stranded in your small coastal town?
Oh sweet Ophelia,
are you truly a princess
about to return
to your underground kingdom?
Is this a fairy tale
to you?
Or is it survival?
Did your brain
provide the chalk
for you to draw
the door to escape
to your imagination?
To a reality that didn’t
resemble the one
you were trapped inside
An alternate reality
where neither the sea
nor the bottle
could drown your father
Where the war
could not take him
forever away
When the waves
of anguish surround you,
will you weather the storm?
Does your key unlock
a new passage or is it simply
another dead end?
Is that the hand of God
or the hand of death
drawing closer,
or are they both the same
underneath the soggy glove?
Will the waves
be your rebirth
or will they wash you away?
Is this freedom
or fiction?
Miracle
or mirage?
Deviation
or despair?
Tell me you can swim,
Tell me you have gills,
Tell me your throne is waiting
Tell me it isn’t only a story
for you
As you shake with fear,
tell me: are the monsters
of this world even more
terrifying than the ones
of your imagination?
When the blood
drips down your face,
will you melt like a mortal?
I want you to be
so much more than mortal
Are you beautifully buoyant
or will the weight of the world,
like rocks filling your pockets,
drag you to the depths
of the uncharted sea?
When you take your
next breath of water,
tell me there will be
another
What happens after
the last page,
the last reel?
Is this a new beginning
or only, as the credits say:
The End?
As you race to escape
the pain of your world,
I just want to know,
Will you survive?
Will we?
Written December 2021