Rock Bottom – featuring Eric (from My Sword and Shield…)

I’d like to tell you a story

about a mermaid who saved herself

at the bottom of waters

so deep you could mistake them

for the midnight sky.


Her scales shimmer

in sparkling ripples,

mimicking the stars.

Beneath the pale face of night

her hair is deep auburn

with slivers of gold.

Her skin could be moonlight;

luminous with youth,

as her tail shifts

between pearlescent pastels

and ocean blue.

The sea wraps around her

like a lover

it holds her, gentle and sweet,

in the embrace of the tide

with the ebb and flow,

during the day

in twilight waters

the waves gently tug at her fins

come and play

in the topaz and cerulean,

dance with me

in dappled rays and shoals of fish

like gems and beaded curtains

like a May fair

or a gypsy festival.

Beckoned by the current

she wishes to reach out,

curl her tail beneath her

and glide from out of the blue;

not even a smile dances

upon her lips and cheeks

for in this vast, lonely lake

of life, for her it is always night.

She swims away from the shoal,

from the current pulling her close

wrapping her in sunlight

to cast rainbows between her scales.

She dives into the darkness

when really she falls,

tumbling into her fear

of always swimming solo.

The seabed shudders and sways

in the rippling shade,

rocks with torn edges looming

ever closer, Aurora’s spinning wheel

on the seafloor.

Here, she feels beautiful

shrouded in violet ink

only the bravest of rays

reaching her fingertips.

Here, among the stray shafts of sun

hover ancient skeletons

of ages long past

wooden relics of the surface

that bumped and bobbed

upon the briny fields of blue

and carried souls far from home.

Now they rest, like she

in the shadows of a world that was.

It is here she finds

amid the surge of the deep

betwixt rotten oak

and frayed rope

in a tangle of fishnet

the glint of a tail

neither piscine nor metallic make

and almost identical

to her very own shape.

Caught between man’s rope hands

emeralds glisten, wide eyed

fear and hope,

coral tendrils billowing left and right,

swaying with the seaweed thread

weaving its way about her waist.

Neptune holds a mirror

up to her – except her nets

are tied with the whispers

she imagines in her head,

and the seaweed, the bitter dreams

she wears like pearls around her neck.

The current parts as she glides

forward, navigating the bones

of Jupiter’s wreckage;

her hands moving swiftly to free

the lost soul, eyes full of sorrow,

a mermaid smaller than she

glittering opal as her trappings

fall to the floor.


She takes the hands of her reflection

and leads her to the surface,

to sunlight in motion

atop waltzing waves;

to sparkle as rainbows do

dispelling the darkness

of the rocks at the bottom

of life’s ocean.


Thank you Eric, for bringing this mermaid to life with me.

My Sword and Shield…


Image: pinterest

14 thoughts on “Rock Bottom – featuring Eric (from My Sword and Shield…)

  1. MurderTrampBirthday says:

    Already commented on Eric’s reblog but I feel the need to elaborate. This is amazing. At first it felt innocent and made me think of disney’s the little mermaid but it turned out to be a lot more badass… and cruel, much like the original tale. Really love this one.

    Liked by 2 people

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