A girl stands between an ocean and a cliff.
Her black hair tangles with the salty wind, eyes shut for the sun is too bright. Her skin is tight, as if pulled by an invisible string.
She peeks one eye open, squinting. The sea stretches before her, light dancing on the waves. The far-distant horizon places gentle kisses on the clouds that dip just below it.
She imagines jumping in. Engulfed by the water and sinking deeper, deeper. She wants to disappear, to lose herself in the darkness. She wants to be one with the sea.
How the girl envies those creatures down below. The ocean is their breath. The current is their blood. How could they not know who they are?
The girl does not know who she is. Though liquid sapphire swims through her veins, she is only half of the sea. But it is not her home. She knows it never will be.
She closes the eye fixed on the waves. The other one opens — now turned toward the cliffs.
She gazes up. Sharp winds carry her vision unto the sky. That bright, iridescent blue. Birds of light soar high above; they appear to breach the heavens.
There is no other purpose to be born with wings than to fly. Those penguins and ratites — they have lost their meaning some centuries ago, but they too have flown once before.
She yearns to know the feeling. That freedom, that limitlessness. Her two feet confine her to the ground, and she knows those winged beasts must mock her from the clouds.
She stretches her hand up. Such is an endless pursuit, though one she will never reach. She, too, wishes she were born with wings.
Her eyes close again. How cruel fate must be, she thinks, that I must be barred from both the sky and the sea? I am a creature of nothing.
The girl follows the scent of salt and earth onto the beach. Her toes sink into rocks, ankles dusted in oceans’ tears.
She was made by these strange worlds. She balances now on the line between them. Her eyes open.
The ocean stretches far into the distance. The waves meet the sand and from the sand sprout the cliffs. Boundless in their reach, the cliffs breach the sky, breach the heavens.
Indeed, no fish, no creature of the sea, could witness such a sight. Nor a bird flying high above could ever peer into the abyss.
They know nothing of these worlds.
Only her. To this girl, the two do belong. This child of both, born into none.
She breathes in the fresh air. Crouching in the water, her dress dances among the riptides. She looks out far, far ahead, eyes lingering on the horizon where the sky meets the sea.
The colors seem to blend into one.
Visual Credit: Francesco Ungaro
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