Jennifer Boyle

“I'm not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, my reality is just different from yours.”
― Lewis Carroll

“Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“It’s only the sea,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Every wave that dies on the beach sings a little song to a shell. But you mustn’t go inside because it’s a labyrinth and you may never come out again.”
― Tove Jansson, Comet in Moominland

“I used to love the ocean.

Everything about her.

Her coral reefs, her white caps, her roaring waves, the rocks they lap, her pirate legends and mermaid tails,

Treasures lost and treasures held...

And ALL

Of her fish

In the sea.

Yes, I used to love the ocean,

Everything about her.

The way she would sing me to sleep as I lay in my bed

then wake me with a force

That I soon came to dread.

Her fables, her lies, her misleading eyes,

I'd drain her dry

If I cared enough to.


I used to love the ocean,

Everything about her.

Her coral reefs, her white caps, her roaring waves, the rocks they lap, her pirate legends and mermaid tails, treasures lost and treasures held.

And ALL

Of her fish

In the sea.

Well, if you've ever tried navigating your sailboat through her stormy seas, you would realize that her white caps
are your enemies. If you've ever tried swimming ashore when your leg gets a cramp and you just had a huge meal of In-n-Out burgers that's weighing you down, and her roaring waves are knocking the wind out of you, filling your lungs with water as you flail your arms, trying to get someone's attention, but your
friends
just

wave

back at you?

And if you've ever grown up with dreams in your head about life, and how one of these days you would pirate your own ship and have your own crew and that all of the mermaids

would love

only

you?

Well, you would realize...

Like I eventually realized...

That all the good things about her?

All the beautiful?

It's not real.

It's fake.

So you keep your ocean,
I'll take the Lake.”
― Colleen Hoover