Cold, seeping into my skin

Filthy moss dripping from limbs

Peering beneath the cups of light

Watching for the water's slight

Of hand. A trick learned long ago

From tortured souls upon sinking boats

Bury their screams beneath the slinky sand

Shred their seams to life, far away from land

They pick and live beneath the glory

That is the sun. Living out their fairytale story

Pale fingers tickle their toes

Believing the seaweed to be their only foes

But what lies beneath is much more dangerous than that

Because just like that––

Snap!

Their bodies fall flat.

It's blood on the water.

Is there such a lovelier thing?

A scarlet that only for I will sing

Corpses slowly drifting down

Crimson spewing from their wounds

The moonlight sending it aflame with red

Like the bonfires that rage on the beach before the riverbed

Covered with licks of rotten shelling

Delicate like the curses of a witches' spelling

I wear it as rubies and jewels

But they never never realize, those fools

Blood on the water.

Love like a daughter.

Thy everlasting queen,

Is there such a lovelier thing?