When I take her from you, as I must take her,
and the crush of your desperation
spills rage through your skin
when your fiery grief leaks into the air
that sways and bells between us
it will be my gift and curse to swallow it
or breathe it in despite its poison perfume
I will do it gladly, this time, to protect
she who leaves with me, the young one
who has never known a shield in all her days.
When I return her to you, as she must return,
and your heart explodes with glee
and relief
when your elation radiates from your pores,
dancing like a bear chasing salmon upstream,
it will smash through the small pools
where I have cached sorrow and loss
I will let you splash my heartache over us
I will let you thunder through my undertow
despite the pain.
Because you won’t know.
You won’t notice. You won’t see,
though you should,
when a wind coming from your island
has upturned a vessel, or changed someone else’s current
or when the sucking need under your rippled surface
might drag another below the waves.
The one I bring with me clears her path
by witnessing the lesson of you.
An empath navigates a violent sea
carving rudders and masts out of their bones:
a shoulder blade to part the waters below,
a slender shinbone to steer against the storms.
We war with tides that would submerge us
or wash us onto the beaches of another soul,
unable to separate our own lives
from the life of that island, knowing nothing
but the breezes waving through your leaves.
Therefore I take your young daughter,
though you cry and plead with me
throwing guilt-knives
crafted from your anguish, shaped
to draw slick ribbons of tears.
I take her so she may know herself outside of you
that the strength of your emotion will not drown her
to where she would become only your reflection
nothing but a proxy for what you call Love.
I take her, bring her to a mountain far from shore
where the empaths live, and rest, and thrive.
So when I return her
she will have her own boat to sail over this vast ocean
and your regrets and joys will only be brief swells
underneath her smooth and steadfast prow.
| Risa Wolf is a multi-gendered water elemental disguised as an ink-stained lycanthrope. (Don’t tell their spouse or their dogs; the disguise is working.) They come from the Burned-Over District in upstate New York and they imagine houses for book-ghosts for a living. Their writing can be found in Apex, Clarkesworld, and Cast of Wonders. Visit them at killerpuppytails.com or on Mastodon at @killerpuppytails. |  |