Content warning:
Alas the calls are heard around the world—conch shells far and wide states to continents. The mortal children have risen. Centuries of preparation to return them to the ocean culminates today.
I taste enemy blood in the water.
I close my eyes
immersed into the liquified despair
of our ancestors
submerged in all the ways we have wept
I learned to breathe in the pressure-filled waters of heartbreak and collective mourning
My fin cuts through the bioluminescent
memories as I bring the mortal freedom seekers to a place of refuge.
My eyes black, pupilless, & full like our skin
The humans hesitant at a Siren surfacing (they have learned well)
My sharp teeth glint, the mortal children of my children continue on, led by elder healers
the fire blazes behind us
as we escape
we go back where we came from.
while navigating ocean catacombs
Leaving behind flames & rage
no longer trapped in our throats.
Koupe Tet, Boule Kay
is heard echoing in the ancient wind
We collectively dive into the coral pathways to freedom.
An underwater railroad meets the Haitian Revolution and in both places we are free.
I sojourn
lead those
who can no longer
find comfort
in the heaviness of systemic hysteria
placed upon shoulders
that have no business carrying these burdens.
Ocean hallways warp into
underwater bridge crosses.
A freedom walk,
mortal babies & families all together.
A million diaspora march
to a promised land.
Where abundance truly is birthright.
A land where they do not fight over the chance to survive.
They can all pitch in to uplift. To free.
To expand their majestic existence.
This time whiteness will not bore holes into melanated bodies. Revenge & reverie meet.
Exhaustion is written on their face,
an imprint of sandpaper lives
I swim forward showing each the way. Abandoned land
where our people mortal & otherwise have actually lived in joy for centuries.
Away from the bludgeoned brutality
of a place
they were beaten down
until they called their shackled abode
a house
The secret passed in oral tradition,
the stars align & the ocean opened up
for the first time in eons
to receive its children
grant them passage
orphans—return home, heal,
leave behind the breaking of curses.
from the island—
Our revenge suffices
we see the dismembered states in a wildfire and smoky patches draw our rage in the sky.
Never to be inhabited again.
As the ocean closes with the waning moon.
We—never to be extracted from again
I give another breath through my gills—ensure the coast is clear—as the humans return to this majestically hidden home safely tucked in between the triangle of Bermuda—the pathway bioluminescent and swirling. A rush of luminescent coral and silver scales displaying schools of fish that follow the echoes of my kin’s echolocation. Swarms of whales and dolphins protect the sides as the opening unveils a one-way pathway. They all move forward with urgency, the prayers of grandmothers current and ancient protecting them against any harm.
I taste undeserved rage in the wind—my eyes capture a male rough draftian—mortal boy in my ancient eyes or the humans call it a young man—yelling and irate as if he does not know what it is to float between the nothingness. He seems to have a life feeling as conqueror and not conquered, he beats his chest as if he is his own type of god. He aims to make the weary human kin a spectacle. Attempt to prevent them from knowing true freedom. Some stand ready to fight, I am impressed but I tell the others of the water to lead them away.
I turn my back on the portal knowing I can always access Woz Quartz through ancient rites. How dare I say no to vengeance I remain ravenous for? My teeth sharpen further, glistening the reflections of moonlight and I laugh at this chance. I will teach it what is the wrath of a god among the blaze and ash of its dying planet.