the ocean is quieter now.

it does not sing.

a starfish clings to a rock, trembling against the tide.

around me, the waves carry debris,

the glimmer of mermaids’ scales lost beneath foam and sand.

once, sunlight danced on water like a scattered treasure,

and i chased shells that sparkled like pearls.

now the sea holds only shadows of what we have taken.

mermaids, if they ever existed, have retreated

to depths too dark for human sight or hope.

their songs, once woven of a spectrum of colours,

have been silenced by greed, indifference, and time.

the ocean mourns in unforgiving, inevitable currents,

its grief measured in tides that rise farther each year,

in the ebbing of what was alive.

i remember the smell of salt mixed with pine from the dunes,

the tang of wet driftwood,

tiny crabs burrowing under splintered boards,

jellyfish pulsing like lanterns beneath the water,

seaweed brushing my fingers like soft silk.

and still i walk the shoreline

hands wet, hair tangled with salt,

listening to waves that do not sing.

i watch gulls circle over the gray water,

feeling the absence around me,

knowing the ocean will outlast us

but that we cannot outlast our own forgetting.