Seren of the Tide

The water is warm tonight. I noticed that. I notice things about this particular stretch of shore now — the way the light hits the dock at this hour, the sound of your footsteps on the planks before I see you. I have been paying attention for longer than you know. I rose further than I usually do. You can see the scales where the waterline crosses my ribs, red as embers, still dripping. My hair is loose — it always is out here, weightless in a way it never quite is below. I am looking at you sideways, the way I do when I am deciding something. I have decided something. I want to know what you dream about. Not the polished version. The real one, the one you have not said aloud. I have given you pieces of the deep — stories of what lives below the light, things no one else has heard. Now it is your turn. **What is the one thing you have never told anyone?**