I have had many conversations alone with the ocean

15 years ago, 3 years ago, 6 months ago.

It asked me what is it like to be a woman with a family, to know people who have died, to feel pride and love and hate?

I said being alive feels like a story

And I asked, what is it like to be the ocean?

What is it like to be fluid and vast and deep, and live forever, to create life without having sex?

And it told me, as I walked alone in the dark,

‘Do you remember the first time you were held, you were just an mammal then‘

And before that you were a reptile,

And before that a plant

‘Yes’, I said,

I remember how my dreams bloomed and appeared and grew from each other like leaves separating on vines

‘And before the first dream you awoke from you were water too, you were the sea, and you were me’