When I was a sea witch, my spirit sparked like an electric eel and I moved across the water in lighting strikes. I gathered stones and glass and the shells with spiral heads – little towers where familiars lived. I put these treasures inside a box made of oyster shell and hid them away for another day. A day for spells. A day when the moon, pregnant with light, summoned my bare breasts, my tangled hair, my heart heavy with intention.

Ocean of life, ancient sea
take what I will give to thee.
Take these raw pearls of worry,
take these prayers made of pleas,
take these nightmares in a hurry,
take them all away from me.

The sea took me deep down into the murky blue, the place of no light, of unbreakable cerulean hues. My shells were broken, the glass shattered, the stones smoothed into nothingness. I did not rise to the surface like Ophelia in a pond of lily pads and roses.

When I was a sea witch, my lungs filled with salt and water and I drowned underneath the weight of a spell.