That Bitter Ocean
In the depths of that deep, bitter ocean, I find my words floating around.
Some have fallen apart, some I find in some mound, but all of them drowned.
I swim and swim, finding words and inside my mouth they go, shoved and stuffed.
But when I try to speak, my lips feel as if they have been cuffed.
In the depths of that deep, bitter ocean, I am floating around.
When I see what I see I can’t help but slightly frown.
Next to me in bold letters: “Papá, porque no me ama, el océano es más importante?”
I wish I could tell him to just take a seat, but not a drink—or maybe just a latte?
Shoved words, too heavy to be left unspoken,
Too heavy on the eyes to ever utter.
They start to clutter, they start to flutter.
Weighed down from heavy words, I’m sinking, I’m on the ocean floor
All around me, cans of bitter beer
I’ll be here for a year—or two,
I just wish I could be sincere.
Mar
I am a poem colored in blue water colors.
I am the sea;
It’s in my name: Mar, Mar, Mar, Mar.
Beautifully, the tides sing.
They say my name: Mar, Mar, Mar, Mar.
It sounds like a melody just longing—aching to be free.
El Mar…
Yearns like a string on a guitar wanting to spring out.
Sings like a key on a piano, one that’s out of tune.
Yet—somehow—it still sounds beautiful, of that I have no doubt.
I am the sea,
El Mar.
My soul is tied to it, to the depths of it.
They ask, “How deep are you?”
But my soul is as deep as that sea—
The one that aches and longs,
Screams with the wrong piano key.
A voice crack,
The one yearning, yearning for love.
Author’s Note:
I’ve always had a deep connection with the ocean. El mar. It’s beautiful, yes, but also so ugly and terrifying, which makes it perfect for poetry. Even in “ugly” things, like the ocean, you can find beauty in it; you can find beauty in the most painful and scariest of things. Which is why I wrote That Bitter Ocean and Mar, they both depict two sides of the same coin; both being beautiful but one in a more painful way.
Marilyn Orellana-Flores | 15 | California, USA |
