The Little Mermaid

The ocean waves to the land from beyond the sand dunes

Many a child wave(s) back, in faith that the sea is kind

Whilst sailors, pirates, and fisherman are aroused by its scent of doom

But few a sailing man trust that under surface live people they might find

For not all people have legs and not all with legs are alike

Dive down and deep for as above so below

And lo and behold

A city of salt and gold

No one knows how old

And so, it is just a legend

Or so they’ve convinced their friends

But let me be the first one

To tell you the worst ones

Are not the sharks or eels

But those who march along on heels

With no taste for how it feels

The beach protects the above from the below

The reason why no one knows

And so, the story goes

She was wronged

But that’s where they’re wrong

For beasts will fight before long

And for long

But you will never hear the song

Of the victor

In joy for

They can’t praise a war

With naught a survivor

She had finally made up her small, stubborn mind. She was to breach the boundary that stood for generations. She was to go into a world unseen by her contemporaries – despite her father’s forewarnings. Despite her limitations.

“They preach lies and worship falsehoods. Those things from the otherworld have not a reason to bear such similar visages to us even if they are all similar in the most aesthetically displeasing ways. Why then seek us out? Should I not conclude that mayhaps it is upon us – as they all fail to match our wit and physical prowess – to grace them with my own presence so that they might finally achieve whatever goal it is that they are all too pathetic to reach?”

Pockets of air hurriedly fled from her in her sudden movement, her body folding and twisting around itself – kicking and turning around to launch her body up into the air – breaking the skin of the surface for her delicate, glittering skin to be warmly greeted by light far brighter than her eyes could shine. Holding her flat face to the sky, she sat suspended as two atmospheres wrapped around her body, gripping and caressing her with the care of a new mother. And so, her heart wrote its resolve in freezing blood – she was but a god writing the prayer to be chorused back to her centuries after she had tired of this realm and moved on to the next, as she was sure all the other gods had done – the otherworld was to sacrifice its love to her as the warm light did.

She decided to begin her journey once the light faded away and the warmth with it – she was to follow it. She fancied herself wiser than her father, for she knew the warmth did not die when it fell. It rose only for her of course and it has fallen for her as well, beckoning her to the edge of the surface… for that was certainly where the otherworld would lie. Her father demanded proof again and again. What was she to say? She could not speak the way her family could. They told her it was by fault of a witch and a curse an unknown number [of] ages old. Little did they know it was truly a blessing – she only spoke how the light spoke for the light was a god as she. And if the otherworld worshipped the light as much as she had determined it would, then why would they not love her if not two times as much?