Museum of Broken Souls
Chicago, IL
2020, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Exhibit A: tears
when you’re in the ocean,
tears are just salty water.
sift the liquid through your
fingers, see how
the grief of the world sit
so perfectly in your palms.
plastic waste blood
tears
of families ripped apart.
fish whales birds seals—
they cry too.
the next time you go to the
beach, pretend you’re
wading in salty water,
just salty water and
nothing else.
Exhibit B: funeral
when someone dies,
bring them flowers.
when she dies,
the girl
with the seafoam gown and
seismic eyes,
sea kelp braids and
bleached coral spine,
who guzzles down trash
and chokes up ash—
the ocean
—don’t bring her flowers.
bring her something that is
already dead,
or better yet something that
was never alive:
the whispers of change
and promises long
forgotten.
Exhibit C: ghosts
when it ends,
they’ll all be ghosts.
blurry faces and tired eyes
among a sea of skeletons.
hazy memories and lives,
reminders of what
could’ve been.
screams shouts shots—
all stopped.
it’s hard to make noise
when your ears, mouths,
voice
have been taken away.
silence.
but silence is not serenity.
Reflection
There is so much that is beautiful about the ocean, enough to fill up giant museums glorifying the wonders of marine life. However, rarely do these museums touch upon the suffering that the ocean ecosystem experiences. I wrote this poem to raise awareness about the sacrifice behind the beauty, and the fact that we, as humans, are responsible, and only we can undo the damage we have caused.