I went to the sea 

to see if there were answers 

to the questions I had collected, 

the way a crow hoards trinkets in its tangled nest. 

answers I couldn’t seek anywhere else.

I wanted to know if I would go to heaven or hell

because I don’t believe in god, only in damnation

which frightens and shows its pale face freely.

simply– was I good or bad?

no one I asked could tell me.

I wanted to know if I’d be able to love

as I imagine I could if something in me was shifted,

a few organs that could be lifted and rearranged. 

please– what cures loneliness?

no doctor ever knew how to do it.

but when I screamed these questions out into the sea 

I was offered no reflections.

only the white silence of waves and

seaweed quivering around my shoes.

the salt depositing itself languid on my eyebrows.

when I was a child I held a seashell up to my ear

to listen to the ocean speaking clearly,

hung onto every detail it whispered

until I learned it was only the sound of my own heartbeat 

circling back to me in an echo chamber.

shells were piled around the coastline

the water lapping over them,

slow and steady,

but I left them there to lie.

walked back up to the street.

knowing only this:

no matter the answer my own heart gave me, 

I preferred the sea.

I preferred the silence.