Heavy Mantles

Heavy Mantles:

The draw of the sea, unpredictable, dangerous, and destructive, yet sparkling, playful and enticing.

She thought you were going to relieve all her pain.

Immersing her body, she is encumbered with layer upon layer of heavy and sinking clothing.

She fights to keep afloat, to keep her head above water,

with all these heavy mantles she has shrouded herself with.

If she could take them off, a piece at a time, she would let them float free.

Let them take on a life of their own, as they sink in the water.

Each one, fills out to become a new form, like a multiplicity of versions of herself,

floating under the green waters.

Lithe and twining, curving, rippling, soft and pliant to the pull of the riptide.

Eventually after their silent dance, each one sinks to the lower depths of the sea,

where the light cannot penetrate.

Moving from glass green to teal and forest green, to black green.

As they sink beneath, lost to sight, so she is freed from each burden, each weight.

She does not feel compelled to retrieve them or go after them.

She lets them go, and feel the lightness as each form is gone,

a buoyancy in her heart that lifts her higher in the water,

up towards the sun and the air.