By: Katie-may fincham
Dear the girl with salt in her lungs,
Things feel miserable. The rot is spreading, lining and coursing through your arteries
like a disease you are certain will never leave. You are alone, and it is the worst thing in
the world because you cannot change it, no matter how hard you try.
You were standing on top of the world when the orbit shifted. You look around, but no
one seems to notice the ocean rising, your lungs filling quietly with water, because for
them life never changed. You watch as if someone else has tilted the globe in their hands
and let you slide off the edge of it.
You will apologise for failing. For struggling. For the world to continue on as if you
were never drowning at all. Years later, you will look back and wish you had stood up -
We will plead with you now to stand up, over the deafening sneers echoing around you.
But I understand why you couldn’t. Why you didn’t. Why you would not dare to.
The rot was paralytic. A dark, heavy blanket smothering every ember, every spark that
once lived in you. What felt like a supernova at its crescendo -that blinding, white-hot
flare- will not, did not, destroy you. It only seared your retinas long enough that the
darkness after felt like home.
The death of one star is never an ending. It is a beginning you are not yet equipped to
witness. The light starting to constellate, because what you think is irreparable damage
is only the shockwave before creation. The light is not as dim as you think. The rot you
fear is only decay making room for something new to take root. The water in your lungs
will evaporate, not from anger, but from a quieter fire you have not met yet.
You will learn that the light you carry is not borrowed from others. It is something you
hold for yourself, and sometimes pass on like a relay of beacons in the dark.
I don’t know if you will ever have perfect peace.
But I know years from now, you will be okay.
Love,
the girl who coughed up the water.
-katie-may
Author's bio
Katie-may is a Fine Art student who utilizes poetry to provide a psychological and philosophical framework for her visual work. By weaving these mediums together, she explores the nuance of nostalgia and memory.