the spectacle of tentacles and heartbreak and loosened teeth. i saw this. i saw this upon the hull and wept. barnacles and mermaids and sirens and bloated dead men gouged eyes strewn across the reef. did you forget me? did you finally forget? or has the wound scabbed over into the semblance of something whole and sturdy and alive. the living, ah that’s always the rub isn’t it? between the storms and longing and flogging and the walls of the brig: the choice between living and weeping, carrying on and throwing up, swimming out into the sea or drowning to the shore.