The death of a siren

Tw: Dark thoughts and violence

Ships at sea sink in deep, siren songs carry the weight of a thousand men into the dark.

I step out, emerging from the sea. Foot by foot. The veil of water is crystal, with waves rolling over each other playfully like children enjoying nature’s gifts. Bubbles rising to the top to froth and look like soft cotton.

I can see everything from here. Sun embracing my body,  tingling on my limbs and warming them up. I haven’t seen colour like this in years, the shades of the sand, the undertones of my skin, the birds above me look like oil paintings.

I realise I had been living my life in grey.

Looking back, you fascinate me. I have always looked past danger so I could focus on beauty. 

Rosy cheeks like a blooming rose. Roses always mesmerized me. My childish fingers picking one off a bush only to find my hand covered in fresh blood. The thorns were always unexpected like a train track coming alive and hitting nearby tourists.

***

I felt you for the first time in PE class in 7th grade. My sports clothes hung awkwardly on my body, unflattering me in every possible way. Everyone else was developed, hair perfectly styled while mine frizzed at the edges.I heard you before I could see you, hairs on the back of my neck standing up as you whispered. 

I heard your voice. Approaching me slowly, your eyes blinded me. Your beautiful voice deafened me. Your warm touch ripped my skin apart as I listened. Wicked enchantments put me into a trance. I saw you and I saw me. Ugly and pretty. Stupid and smart. 

The devil lived on my shoulder, whispering lies and truths to me. Leaving smoke behind me and I felt grey.

I wanted you to eat me alive til I was gone, til I became part of you and no longer myself. I didn’t want to be me. The facade of a siren and a siren’s song told me that I was nothing but an existing inconvenience. 

Again, in math class, I looked out the window and the sea nearby rose. I could hear you, your voice flooded into my ears, poisoning my brain with hatred and bleeding into my veins. Before I was shaken awake. 

***

The bed cover was stuffed with feathers made of memories. Most were of Sara and I when we were kids, thick with joy and bursting with excitement.

But now they are thin and sparse. But it smelled the same. Vanilla. It felt the same. Soft but bumpy. And Sara looked the same, but different. I couldn’t tell what changed. 

“So, What’s up?” I say, looking at her new wallpaper, I remember the old one had rainbows on it but this one is plain blue. 

The lack of response prompts me to look up but she’s already moving towards me. A hug. Her arms wrapped around my back, and she smells like the Victoria’s Secret perfume that I got her for her 13th birthday. 

It was a weird sensation, like I was deprived of sunlight but now thrown into the dessert to be burned.

“Do you know when the next math test is?” Sara says softly while reverting back to her seat. 

“You brought me here to tell you when the math test is? It’s next Monday.” I smile. Weirded out. 

She doesn’t look satisfied. “What’s it on? Which topic?”

I think for a bit. I don’t know how long but I guess I was sitting there like a statue for a while, genuinely wracking my brain. Fractions? Algebra? Functions?

“I don’t know” I whisper.

“ Yeah, I guessed. I watch you in class and you always seem distracted. But not in a good way, are you okay?” She asked with genuine concern.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Just tired honestly.” I sigh. 

This started out as a check up conversation but soon led to a borderline therapy session with my childhood friend. We used to bond over Barbies but now we bond over our aging aches.

“I’ve been stressed out lately” Sara says in a hushed tone, as though she were afraid that someone nearby could hear us.

“Yeah me too” I looked her in the eyes. She got her braces removed, her hair was shorter, she had blush and lipstick on, she has a gold necklace with her name on it.

It was night when my mom came to pick me up. I couldn’t see anything apart from the road lit up by the car light. The sky looked flat. I could tell that my mom was happy that I was happy. But she said one thing.

“Your spirit has been down.”

There was an unspoken connection at that moment. I could feel everyone around me so clearly. Like I had finally gotten good phone service after listening to everyone’s voices mush together. 

I now realise that I had been living my life in black and white.

***

It was an afternoon, I ran from my front porch all the way to the beach.I ran like forward was the only direction my legs could take or else they would collapse. I ran so I could confront you, you demons. My demons.

“Come out” I say

The waters are calm.

“Come OUT” I speak louder, looking directly at the sea.

“COME OUT” I finally scream. First pain, then sadness and then regret escapes from my mouth. My eyes wide open and my back is arched, as though something has come alive inside. 

And it comes out. It roared out. It tears me apart.

Finally. Hate.

It all twists into the air and becomes a lethal gust of wind. The waves rise, threatening me. And you rise above it all. 

You rise up, like an ancient curse coming to haunt me for challenging your power. I am a peasant at the feet of a king, but I am not here to ask for forgiveness. I am here to take back what was once mine.

You are like a half-finished painting, incomplete and rough around the edges. The artist had died making you and there were only dead colours of blue on the painting.  But your beauty distracts that from me. 

You stalk towards me like a leopard. You’re overconfident. Obnoxious, really. 

The waves slap my body, punishing me pushing me back and forth. Tugging my hair, ripping strands off my head. Waves push their thumbs into my eyes, trying to make me see black, to see nothing. But I’m not your toy, I am not a snake to your flute. Your music is juvenile noise. And I open my eyes.

I grab you by your long neck, my fingers curling in and pushing. Softer, weaker. I slay you by the neck but that’s not all. I look into your eyes and you look right back at me. Blank eyes, I search for a heart, a soul, a sign of warmth in your translucent body but you’re nothing. Just a mass of water slipping out of my fingers. 

You squeal and wail.

A siren’s song leads to a siren’s death.

But I have finally stepped out of the sea. I lay on a patch of green grass and look directly into the stars. I see patterns. Intricately drawn and dancing around one another in a waltz. Ones hanging round in clusters while shy introverted ones were dotted around. I can see directly into true beauty. I can see the stars.