The Sea Kelp Wood, for Alden

Though brave and ambitious

In the day, the Sailor Boy

Beat, beat, beats his breast

In the shelter of the night.

Nausea is a knife; he has never been seasick.

The Sailor Boy bites back the vomit that would

Alert the world to the truth, as

He strolls calmly, too calmly, towards the Sea

Carrying a knowledge unknown to those he loves;

Guilt weighs heavier than silence

This, a gleaming, searing, aching truth.

The Sailor Boy strolls, too calmly,

Through the tearing waves;

Because he does not wish to leave

Their anxious, ever lapping company.

The Sailor Boy’s skin soon matches

His eyes, once so blue, as the last

Few bubbles of breath scurry towards the surface.

They should have dragged him

With them, but the Sea loved the Sailor Boy

So they did not.

They defied the wishes of the world above

and listened

To the Sailor Boy’s sweet, chiming voice

As he quietly whispered

To let him sink.

Down down down in the deep

Where the cerulean creatures play,

He wanders in a sea kelp wood.

Here, he has company.

Here, the heat from the sun cannot touch him.

Here, the quiet shelters the Sailor Boy

From the raving madness of the

Storm that shrieks above.