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Writer's pictureAishwarya Jayal

A Half-Quicksand Mermaid

It’s that time again,

When I close my eyes and sink.

Have you ever felt that you can sink but not drown?

That you’d forever be stuck in

The asphyxiation of water weighing on you,

Filling your lungs till you can’t breathe,

Your mouth so you can’t ask for help,

Your eyes so all you see is froth and more water

And the worst conquest is when it fills your ears.


Suddenly,

In a state of tangible, physical heaviness,

Your ears are loudly buzzing

With water,

the weight,

and the silence

That is liquid.


Have you ever felt so ineffective,

That you just couldn’t move your body to fight for that one last breath?

And in that strange moment,

When you can’t breathe,

Yet could have if you chose to fight,

Your life becomes clearer;

And you can see yourself just pathetically floating along,

To the destination that doesn’t have a beginning

But is a circle of infinity, with no escape.

When escape was as easy as a single finger's flutter.


And when you’re sinking,

You think about drowning;

About death;

And curiosity gets the better of you.


How much more can I take before I drown?


And suddenly a switch goes off,

Into a psychedelic phytoplankton of fluorescent abstraction;

And you take up water as an ally,

And push yourself the wrong way;

Down,

Further down,

Till you’re now sinking in the sand

That water couldn’t penetrate.

In the hope that you see the end,

And make a miraculous reverse leap towards the beginning.


What is curiosity, if not romanticism of the fatal?


But now,

You’re caught in quicksand and the danger is real,

So you try to save yourself

But your legs have changed form

And half of you is lost forever.


So there you are,

A half-quicksand mermaid,

Floundering in what you’d thought you’d escape,

But breathing in the same water that tried to kill you.


You’re the water now.

And the only choice you ever have,

Is whenever someone sinks again,

Do you throw them back out,

Or do you add another Mermaid to your Kingdom?


What’s that feeling when you feel you’re just not feeling bad enough?


Prose here, explores the feeling of not being enough, of being overwhelmed with one’s own self and being prey to the self’s inability to see beyond the pain one is facing. Each pain we face has its roots, in some trigger from someone/thing. And this pain, we often embed ourselves in it and and make it the world we live in. Often drowning others into it as we project ourselves onto them. But do some of us, not indulge in this? Can some of us look beyond? Can all of us go beyond?

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