Promise me the sea

Dredging up the murky,dense waters of the past,I watch. I watch hidden, wicked things float to the choppy surface,disrupted from a silted sleep. The wreckage that once sank slowly now lies rotting, bobbing in the tidal currents below the whitecaps,anchored with concrete cynder blocks. It begans to reek upon the peak of its ascension like that of a bloated corpse. I killed it months ago. I killed it.

My knees gave out when the stench of it hit my nose,when the sight of it burned my vision bleak, and I crumbled. I broke. I fell to the uneven ground in a trembling heap and there was no sand to soften the blow, only jagged shards. They struck my rattled bones upon impact and abraised my vulnerable skin,lovely red ribbons to adorn my bare feet. I wear them like velvet slippers.

I am no match for the raging sea, no threat to the sting of the prevailing winds that carve subtle runes into my open flesh, or to the sting of salt that fills my labored lungs with fire.
Only can I hope to heal under a blazing sun that blisters my retinas with scorching memories. Helplessly I watch, as those terrible things are washed ashore to saturate my inner vision. I grow blind, but my eyes, my eyes see.

The waves push them closer, my focus is bitter and raw with regret. I squeeze my lids shut tightly and shout for the tide to carry them away from me, to spare me from those hideous stains that mark my soul. Wickedness has no soul and it only greets me in hushed tones that clog my ears and lap at my toes like a gentle, poisonous promise of forever.

But unlike the sea, promises are broken. And I am broken,too.