Red sails and blackened hulls
Cresting over the horizon
A rising tide of wounding trauma
Contagion of hate that will forever scar

Stripped of all your morals
Learn to hide the scowl
Suppress the grinding teeth
Acquiesce yourself
Become compliant
Make flexible the heart
Immovable you make the mind
No matter what the cost

Already you have seen—committed the greatest sin
Already you have done the unforgivable

This is the price you pay for your mask
The flesh on your face that smiles when you cry
That hides the anger, the reddening eyes
That guises the hatred disfiguring you

Push it down and drown it out
Ignore the screaming voice inside my head
The beating of my heart inside my chest
The ocean ‘neath my eyes ready to burst

I was me—I had been me
I cannot bear the skin that I’ve been made to wear
I was me—I had been me
I cannot bear the bones that move me through this world

Drag me from the jaws of the earth
Wipe clean the mud from my eyes
Dispel all the things I hate in me
And still I will leave you to the sea

I am not me—I am not me
What is this skin draped on my muscles
Who am I—who was I
I cannot tell what hurts more
Forgetting or remembering

I am I, a cormorant without the sea
I am I, a cormorant without the wind
I am I, a vessel of rage
I am I, the traitorous bird

I have begun to search for the sea
I am in quest of salt in the air
To bury it inside your wounds
Even if it costs me everything