Saltwater Devotion

The wind flitted across Mayalis’s dark skin, striking her breasts, her stomach, her throat. Vibrations charged throughout her body, drowning away everything except the grief of Yemaya she carried in her lungs- well, almost everything. At the sight of the captain, she struggled between song and hesitation. “I can’t do this,” she muttered to herself as the vortex ripped through sail and sky. I don’t want to hurt you, even after everything, she thought as she clutched clumps of her curly hair.

Mayalis hovered, and the people aboard the ship darted below like ants. Cannons were loaded, fuses were lit, and war cries were reverberated. All were useless to the power in the palms of her hands, in the palms of her sisters’ hands�"a stark contrast to when she had been thrown over board after her body had been defiled and destroyed. The memories clenched her jaw, made tears spill over her cheeks.

Rage clouded her eyes, which were brown as quaking earth.

She willed her fin to feet as she landed on the main deck. The crew scattered, and her sisters devoured the ones who dared to raise their swords. The captain belonged to her. Even now, as he backed away, Mayalis gazed upon him with yearning- yearning for his cheek in her palms, his hair in her fingers, his strong arms around her. But she cried in a scathing tone, “Why didn’t you protect me? Why did you turn your back on me when I cried for you?” However as the ship passed through, the sirens calling out to the crew for their deepest desires, Mayalis’s plea for love was distorted into her saying, ““I’m so proud of you, my son! Give me a hug!”

Author's Note

Photo by Ivan Bandura on Unsplash