The Water's Toll
Media Round-Up
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (Netflix): I think this is a real fun trashy anime. It also kind of showed me that a lot of people's bar for weird is actually pretty low? Cos like….aside from the poses, the phenomenal colour palette, and a few little details, each individual season and most episodes are very much a conventional story structure with a Dudes Being Bros vibe on top.
Rumours - Lizzo: This song is a bop! A lot of people just hate her cos she's a fat Black woman but like, there's so little to actually hate about her or this song? It's just fun and she's clearly gonna make a lot of money off of it.
Love Island - This is gonna get more length in a later newsletter but what I will say for now is that the desirability politics continue to desirability politic and who gets defined as a villain is very contingent on that.
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Last week I was in Brighton for a few days, and like any good poet formed a parasocial relationship with the sea! So here's me finally doing more fictional prose, something I did more of a whiiiile ago then dropped off of.
The Water Comes
there's something about the shore in the night time
Red flashes off the husk of the old pier
a warning? a message swallowed up by the sea breeze?
maybe with enough time I could learn its tongue, figure out how the waves formed words
but for now there was just Might,
Might and gentleness,
In and Out. Give and Take. Drinking and Drowning -
The Water Comes To Claim Its Due.
Rest Your Sword
The soldier of Nowhere dropped from the saddle. He barely felt the stones as they crashed against his breastplate. The metal was sticky and stained with deep purple flecks, but it held. That was the least of his concerns now.
He was here because the sea breeze called out. It had done so before and he ignored it - blamed it on his lonely fractured mind
The signs were simple at first. A taste of salt on the tongue. The caw of a seagull. A piercing breeze. Then the dreams came.
At first he thought they were the same night terrors of the past. Blood, viscera and steel under an overbearing sun, screaming over and over and over again begging for it to stop. This time it was different, When he plunged his sword deep instead of blood there was sand - and suddenly he was drowning. Soon enough he was down on the sea floor, unable to move but unable to die either, he couldn't even scream.
He remembered waking suddenly, drenched. A strange odour lingered in his fluids. Stranger still were the tiny granules of sand between his toes.
Just about pulling himself up after his fall, the Lone Soldier ambled to the shore, sword dragging through uneven ground and leaving a trail of sparks in his wake. When the sea touched the tip of his boot he dropped to his knees. Ragged words burst forward from his shaky tongue. Some might even call it a prayer:
“Take my burdens on your salty breath...Erode them into pebbles to be skimmed along your surface...Know the debt I owe...Know by you I’m owned...Know that in the time of fire and flood I will gladly take your glacial embrace.”
Now silence.
The Deep held its peace. Yet still he stayed.
No words. But still he stayed.
No hands emerged to hold him. But still he stayed - then noticed.
In the ebb and flow of the waves was a message, A call that gnawed at the back of the brain, and in this moment he knew what needed to be done. The Swordsman saw the waters for what they were and realised their generosity.
They demanded nothing except that you strip yourself of your pretences - lest they drag you to the sea floor.
He obeyed, casting off his blade and armour. The warped and scratched metal he had clung to for protection was now embedded in the sand. Underneath it was a shivering husk of a man, scars lined his shaking frame, who could tell where one started and another ended?
He had never felt so cold.
He stepped forward. One toe claimed by the waves. The water was….warmer than he expected. Not as harsh as it seemed on the surface. So he eased himself in, embracing the tingling sensation of neither here nor there.
Soon he was neck deep. The water stroked his wounds, a strange cross between pain and elation. He was bare. No defences. No walls. He was a plaything of the sea, and play it did.
Seaweed tickled the soles of his feet as the tide gently pulled him further and further out. Somehow panic never set in. Instead he welcomed it, submitted to the power that held him in its palm.
The waves were rougher now. A soft caress became a firm embrace. No ocean floor to ground him, just the waters gripping his throat. His breath hastened. Was it terror or excitement? Did he want to know the answer?
Before he could think any longer his head was under. He forced those tired eyes open to look upon the Blue which held him so tightly - it was incredible. The world swirled around him in its lethal beauty, he understood now, why this would be a worthy grave.
Wonder was cut off by his lack of breath. The air had fled from his lungs and the surface was a distant memory. Chains of seaweed now snaked around his flesh. He wouldn't let go of this embrace. He couldn't. So he closed his eyes and waited once more….
…
..
.
.
..
…
The Sea's Vassal awoke on the shore.
Changed, they smiled.
I’m less online lately, but whsiper on the winds and maybe you’ll fine me! Always appreciate your support whether that’s verbal, financial (ko-fi.com/tayowrites) or whatever else.