My name has a “sea” in it.

My name has a “sea” in it,

And yet I was born on a plain that lacks water.

A place deficient by default, 

I had yet to figure what default meant to me.

“Sea” had brought me no specialty:

A mundane, average

good, not talented

diligent, not prominent 

person who

couldn’t care less, yet couldn’t be more.

Maybe because I am not yet by a sea,

I tried to find an excuse for my mediocrity.

But maybe I was not yet a person that could be seen.

I had been alive, vaguely,

numbly.

I was in swirls of chaos,

blinded by darkness,

surrounded by shrills and shrieks, 

wrestled by an invisible tsunami, 

played back and forth like a ping pong.

Waiting to wake up and find out that everything had happened was just a dream,

and I got to restart my life as a six year old kid and find my path, 

hopefully having consulted my heart this time.

And yet my age never regressed;

all that happened was never a dream.

I did stumble. 

I did cry.

I did sit still with my eyes wide open, 

in deafening silence

long enough to disturb the dead.

I was asked who I would be.

Who had I been?

What had I been?

Guilty.

I didn’t know how to name my feelings.

I didn’t know how to feel those feelings 

Until I did 

come to the sea.

Not traveling but settled,

Not roaming but lingering. 

As the sun spills light over my face

I realized who I am not:

I am not a student,

nor a friend,

nor a daughter,

I am the girl that has a “海” in her name.

And, like a sea,

boundless 

resilient 

embracing.

I may not know who I am still,

but I know what I cannot fall into —  

The endless spiral staircase that leads to a “successful” life,

with stark paintings on the wall,

wilting flowers in intricate vases,

bleak black and wan white.

I don’t want to write my stories in gray,

neither do I want to write in scarlet.

I want to see shooting stars,

feel starry waves,

and touch the infinity of my mind. 

My life should have a sea in it,

and yet…and yet