Even Death Follows Me to the Waters
Levittown, NY
2016, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Mother often goes out to the ocean,
she sits along the cushion sand and talks to the sea.
Her voice is full of pearls and bird melodies,
I can sometimes hear the dolphins sing along
so they can finish their symphony.
But something was with her that day,
but it’s always with everyone.
It was a crispy breezy midsummer day,
the sun was beating down
shining its usual blinding radiation of light,
and to let the ocean know that it’s there to give warmth.
The seashells laid on its couch of sand,
shining its gleam reflection to one’s eye.
Mama took me to the waters,
she told me to look out.
The water shined bright that day,
its clear, crystalline teal light blue aqueous solution shone of highlights.
Coral reefs were splashes and splatters of colors,
colors you’ve never seen or even imagined existed.
There were rocky mountains of cobble and boulders,
seals flapped and seagulls mounted to catch the jumping fish.
It was some sight.
Think of a professional photograph,
but honestly,
it could never replace its true picture of reality and glory.
It always stuck with me.
Mother told me that the ocean is another world,
like our world is oxygen,
their world is the lost city of Atlantis,
gold-riched of treasure and nothing you’ve seen to your naked eye or your wildest imagination.
I went to sleep that night,
wanting to walk that ocean floor,
watch fishes and seals swim pass me,
manta rays being my tree shade to the clear sunlight above transparent to the floor.
But something was with me that night.
Mother once told me that no matter what, it’ll follow me.
That it won’t ever leave me,
but that I have to carry on.
However, a night turned to a true apocalypse.
The dream whirled into terror,
I met Death for tea that night too.
We sat by the waters together as disorder fell like rain.
He gave me a toast,
“Wonderful work!…”
"Are you proud of yourself?"
He looked at me,
his face was full of satisfaction as if he won the lottery.
As we drank on,
the world crumpled to ashes and blood flown to rivers and valleys down bodies.
A baby seal was choked by a can plastic holder, with its pulsating flesh cutting through and blood
streaming down to color the earth.
A seagull with bloodshed eyes lied dead at my feet.
Millions of fishes created a pool of poison around us, yet the air to us was crisp and clean.
The ocean instead of the transparent water beauty I knew,
plastic holders, bags, debris…
An ocean of plastic now took its place on its successful coup d’etat.
Death held a plastic bottle in his hand.
"Humans are smart, don't you think?"
"Yet so blind, to their own stupidity...such shame"
"When will you people be satisfied? When will my work be done?"
"For even, I'm tired of doing the dirty work of the things you humans smashed..."
He looked at me for an answer.
I didn’t know what to say.
Mother cried for me,
when she saw me,
her eyes were bloodshot
of utter disappointment.
Even I wondered,
how could I have done so much damage?
Like how humans suffocate when they choke inside plastic bags when murdered,
Earth is still trying to breathe…
But we still try to grab its neck harder.
Reflection
For this piece I was inspired by the novel, The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. Because of his different style of narration, it inspired me to write in the character of Death of not being the narrator, but being a metaphor/speaker of plastic itself. Death is talking to the narrator having tea, meanwhile the world around them is transforming into chaos. Although it is a dream, it's an actual representation of the destruction of the ocean in the nearby future in reality. He is telling the narrator if he/she is proud of their "work" and of how he is disappointed by the way they supposedly utilize him in such a monstrous manner, and is used to clean up their dirty work. I decided to tackle two topics at once, mentioning toxic spills, but focusing more on the dilemma of plastic pollution since it is "literally" roaming around like Death, destroying everything in its path into the waters (hence the title). I wanted the poem to be read and visual in a more figurative way, to use Death as a strong metaphor as to how plastic pollution is starting to seem unstoppable in today's world.