Seasick is Lovesick's Wavy Cousin

Seasick is Lovesick’s Wavy Cousin

A Storybook Poem by Andy "Ocean in my Beard" Buell

Illustrations by Tom "Sassy Sailor" Dewing

Out later than he should have been,
a nervous sailor
gets caught in a storm of night lightning.
As the angry waves threatened
to steal his vessel as a trophy
for the lonely ocean floor,

the sailor stood at the
side of his boat, opened
his chest and placed his
heart in a bottle.

He hoped offering his beat
to a lonely sea dweller
would calm the waters
and the wind to bring him home.

A mermaid, who longed for the
taste of atmosphere,

caught his sinking rhythm.
Placed it to her ear and heard
the sound of the shore
echoing in its depths.

She opened her chest,
placed her own saltwater pump
into the sailor's bottle,
floated it back to him,
The bubble-tears she wiped from her eyes
carried it up to the surface.

The sailor plucked it from the waves,
and felt her salt-water rhythm
as the winds changed
and the ocean guided him to shore.

Safely to port, salt-water 
pumping in his veins,
the sailor wrote thank you notes
to the mermaid for returning him home.

With sand between his toes, 

he sent out fleets of these

messages in Mermaidese,

filled with hope that someday

he can thank her in person,

when they've learned

 to breathe the same atmosphere

The End