thalassophile
Petaling Jaya, Malaysia
2021, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
noun
a lover of the sea; someone who loves the ocean
i.
laugh. giggle as the surf rolls up before you,
reaching out and then shying away, and
then reaching out again.
run. the wind runs with you, ruffling your hair affectionately as
you sprint along the shore, waves cradling every trace of you before
filling up and washing away the
small imprints your tiny feet have left in the golden sand.
it is your world, and it is your whole world.
relish it, and love the water as it loves you,
tickling your feet and splashing fondly around you,
connecting you, through the oceans, to continents you don’t yet know exist.
ii.
laugh. feel the exhilaration of success as you free a small fish from its plastic prison.
giggle as it swims away (back into its quickly-fading home).
how could you know
that it swims out of one plastic bag into another,
feasting on the deformed refuse that
our lust for trifling convenience and selfish indifference birth?
how could you know it chokes that same day on a bottle cap from the other end of the world?
run. run back home with a handful of trinkets
half seashells, half plastic that you picked up because of the way it sparkles in the sun.
you don’t know it then, but
the whole world and its oceans fit into the small palm of your hand:
a painfully stark collection of earth’s greatest wonders
intermingled with the crude, garish consequence of human callousness.
it is still your world,
tainted by others though it may be.
savour it, and love the water as it loves you, returning time and time again to you
all the same, as you discover its scars and afflictions.
iii.
cry. cry for the coldblooded murder of the oceans.
cry because the loss of something so beautiful is
well worth your tears.
cry, but don’t look down—the guilt is not yours to bear.
cry, but not forever. wipe your tears and
iv.
rise. rise with the tide and the sea levels and,
when shores brimming with a brewing storm cannot contain their raging waves,
trade the wings that spring from your squared shoulders for
a glistening tail and dive, unhesitating,
into the oceans that have always welcomed you.
dive and resurface with signs and statistics, march and
translate the ocean’s cries for those who don’t understand them the way you do.
grasp a litter-picker or a pen and
wield it like a sword, ready for your battle.
it is your world to fight for.
save it, and love the water —
though its songs are quieter now, its dances more subdued—
as it loves you.
v.
laugh. laugh because there is still hope
(and maybe, just maybe, it wears an average teenager’s shoes).
run. run across the shoreline, parallel to the horizon
and let every footstep send ripples,
through the oceans, across the world.
this is your world, and it is your whole world.
do what you can for it—quilted together, it’ll be enough.
and, when the burden weighs heavy on your shoulders and
your feet are too weary to go on,
rest them on soft sands for your loving ocean to caress you,
splashing a familiar embrace around your ankles
as it does.
as it always, always does.
Reflection
Reflection
I’ve always loved the ocean. There’s a divine sense of awe, gazing at the horizon, at seas that look infinite, at a peaceful surface below where countless lives begin and end, at the only part of the Earth just too great and vast to fully understand. This wonder is the reason behind my passion for environmental justice, when I learnt about climate change and its horrifying effects on the ocean. My teacher shared images in class, and three particular photographs stood out to me: a starving polar bear, skinnier than I’d ever imagined an animal could be; an orphaned baby seahorse wrapping its tail delicately around a plastic cotton swab; and a before-and-after comparison of a dead reef community, lost to coral bleaching. The images haunted me and broke my heart, and I began to lose all hope for Earth’s recovery. From the magical ideas of blue seas swarming with life and colour—of gentle blue whales and playful crabs, graceful nurse sharks and fearsome deep-sea fish—I began to imagine empty dull-grey waters, overwhelmed with plastic and death. Thinking about beached whales and choking sea-turtles made me angry and unbelievably sad. Then, one day, as suddenly as it had vanished, hope reappeared in the form of conservation efforts I’d never seen before through stories of volunteer-led ocean clean-up projects and sea-creature tagging for observation and protection. Slowly, I began to realise that perhaps all is not lost. This small ray of sunshine turned the anger and grief into motivation, and that’s where I am now—aware of the problem, but not quite devastated or crushed by it, ready to stand up and speak in the only way I know how to: through my writing. This poem is a sort of catharsis, mapping my journey of loving the ocean. Each chapter follows a stage in my life, starting from when I would visit the beach as a toddler and ending in the present. Though I first intended to end it tragically, with the negativity of part iii’s first stanza, as I wrote, it turned into something more positive and inspiring. I began writing addressing the piece to past me, but by the end of it, I found that it was really a message for anyone else who might have lost faith as I did: yes, I know you love the ocean, and what’s happening is terrible. But it’s not over. There are so many solutions, so many things you could do. Don’t lose hope, because you are hope, and change is in your hands.