What Did the Ocean Say to the Shore? (And What Do You Say Back?)
Washington, DC
2022, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
It’s a joke! Nothing, it waved!
But in reality—obviously, nothing. oceans don’t speak.
Except maybe in the rush and the crash
Of the frothing bursts and brash
The sounds coming closer with every day.
And what do you say?
To the blue puddle before you?
Do you apologize, “Sorry! My bad!”
for the plastic in her guts and the poison in her throat
and the dead things she cradles in a mother’s aching arms
(And you know, I’m kind of sorry, but I’m mostly angry.
I’m fourteen, I’m not the one dumping all that oil into the sea.)
So do you forget the carbon the C-suite city suits love,
the carbon Poseidon now groans underneath,
(please give him a break, he can’t bench all of that
See the grated grit of his teeth?)
But really, it’s too much weight,
and wait. What were we talking about again?
Oh yeah—how it’s easy to forget.
But I remember my sisters, who can speak along to the entirety of Moana,
And in my mind they shriek and run from the waves,
And then they turn around and giggle, taunting,
“Fish peeeeeeeeee in you!!!!!”
And I think that it’s okay if that’s what you say by the oceanside,
Just say anything (let your inner John Cusack shine!)
I hope you say something about the ocean because I hope you think about it,
I hope you see the deceptive sparkling blue and think about
the microplastics from the bottles of the water you consume.
So do you cry for the sea turtles (like the ‘VSCO girls’ from two years back)
because maybe it’s a little your fault, our fault, too.
And it’s okay if you cry, I’ll be proud if you do;
Crying in the ocean is ‘peak slay’
More slay if you get our waters back to blue.
(and slay is ironic, by the way)
(except I say it so much it’s a problem, but I am not ready to talk about that!)
(No, I am ready to talk about a carbon tax and ocean pollution stats!)
What if the ocean could speak?
I don’t know, but I imagine
It’d say a helluva lot more than a wave.
Reflection
To me, the purest, most wholesome form of humor is good old dad jokes. Dad jokes can transcend polarization (through what I like to call the "universal cringe"), and I believe that's exactly what's needed to solve the crisis in our oceans. Writing this piece made me feel angry and sad, in a lot of ways. A reckoning with the state of our world is never easy, and it feels like a perpetual backslide, like it's getting worse instead of better—something that was only reinforced as I read about ocean acidification, pollution, and dying sea life. But writing this also made me laugh (honestly, I crack myself up). It made it easier to write about the bad stuff. I want people who read this poem to imagine being held accountable by the ocean and take a good long look at their lives through that lens. I don't want to be anyone's moral compass, but I do want people to be constantly developing their own. It's not easy to admit to yourself that you've done something wrong, but it is easier to do with humor, and it's necessary for our collective future. Together, if we start holding each other accountable (especially large corporations who contribute disproportionately to the problems in our oceans), implement consequences for actions that harm the environment (like a carbon tax), work together (by cleaning up our parks, for example), and recognize our shared culpability and investment in our oceans, I believe we can help our oceans become absolutely fintastic once more.