The sailors say, "Brandy, you're a fine girl" (you're a fine girl)
"What a good wife you would be" (such a fine girl)
"But my life, my lover, my lady is the sea"

Yeah, Brandy used to watch his eyes
When he told his sailor stories
She could feel the ocean fall and rise
She saw its ragin' glory
But he had always told the truth, Lord, he was an honest man
And Brandy does her best to understand

At night when the bars close down
Brandy walks through a silent town
And loves a man who's not around
She still can hear him say

She hears him say, "Brandy, you're a fine girl" (you're a fine girl)
"What a good wife you would be" (such a fine girl)
"But my life, my lover, my lady is the sea"

Swollen eyes, dark and deep,
Hollow pits from lack of sleep.
Rolling down her porcelain cheek,
A single tear, helpless and meek.
Downturned lips kept tightly shut,
Holding back thoughts and words that cut.

Bitten nails wrapped into fists,
Battle wounds curve round her wrists,
Hate and shame across her skin,
She learnt to hide it, she learnt to fit in.
Insecurities lurk beneath tattered clothes,
A world of secrets that no one knows.

The looking glass shows her broken, afraid,
And to herself this is how she’s portrayed,
But to lens and to eye this girl cannot be seen,
To the world she appears as any other teen.
Surrounded by friends she laughs loud and smiles wide,
So no one will know the pain she suffers inside.

hitherto i naively challenged
my decision to enter an ominous existence
a vicious maze veiled in obscurity
inconceivable to navigate without the accumulation
of bruises, heartache, and psychic mutilation

the torment’s ache so unfathomable
i begged to evaporate beseeching death’s arrival
and with the dexterity of a masterful wizard
i magically spun threads of my shredded soul
into a mangled ball of mental lacerations

then stealthily in the opaque of the night
i rushed the frigid black ocean’s high tide
and deluging myself in the ebony water
i buried the battered ball
now deeply eclipsed in the onyx abyss

it sapped all my strength to hold it under
drowning in the wave’s of sea motion
stinging salt alive on my pours
gasping for air i surrendered my grip
releasing my marred orb of élan vital

capitulating to the sand on the beach
i ceded the fight and watched the sphere roll
unraveling it glistened against the white sand
an opalescent tapestry lit by twilight
mirroring the stars against the coal sky

in the lustrous lunar midnight
reflected back by silver moonlight
littered with specks of fluorescent insight
astonished i drew in my breath as i read
words interlaced in the untangled web

the wounds are there
creating a looking glass
peer in
and you will heal
your own consciousness

©2016janetaylor