Prompt: Empty seashells
Source: wandering_star_poetry (Instagram)
As a child, I always collected seashells — mostly abandoned bivalves scooped into skirts for my sketches and fancy sinks for my fancy dolls. But once in a while, my sister would raise her arms and summon the sea to press a tower shell into her open palms. I’d crawl closer, put on my most angelic face, and beg to have a listen — they say you can hear the ocean in them if you close your eyes and just listen. I did.
Then I grew up, bags of seashells collected over the years crumbled and vanished into dust. But any time — every time — I wandered into a beach, I’d keenly look out for bivalves and tower shells. By then, everyone had stopped playing make-believe, and scoffed and sighed and judged me with three pairs of eyes. I should act like a grown-up, you see. I didn’t.
Because I poured my heart into my songs to the sea, and finally, a tower shell swam into my pink fingers and all was perfect with the world. Magic still existed. So I washed it and cradled it back to my house, preserving it for rainy days far away. And I hoped and prayed that if I pressed my ear to it, I’d hear the ocean songs once more.
But a seashell song comes at the cost of Ariel’s silence and a thousand knives piercing her feet. And so, the world was at war — more fires, purple necks, black soot, thick masks; more layers and layers and twisting and turning mazes till the weary soul crumbles to dust — my childhood seashells. But still, I find myself weak some nights, crouched low on the floor, pressing the tower shell to my ear and praying to hear something. I fear it will grow empty.
