As she attempted to plot a logical course from the countless, intersecting lines
On the roadmap imprinted on the vellum surfaces of their faces,
She realized that theirs had been a circuitous journey through not only
Vast and immeasurable swaths of distance and emotions and experiences and time,
But a trek that had never been planned at all, never plotted with sextant against a star,
Never logged in a written recollection to determine how far they had come,
Where they had been,
Nor the point where they had taken their first step.
Yet she imagined, from the dizzying spaghetti of those lines, the unreadable maps that were their weary faces,
That their journey had indeed begun by setting a tender foot on a smooth surface,
An endless expanse of golden sand and so many miles of bubbling turquoise waters that
The horizon seemed to be forever beyond their reach.
Their journey, they had likely believed at the beginning,
Would simply be a tranquil sail under the soft mother's kiss of a warm sun,
Gentle nudged along the route by a steady, calming breeze
Against their unsalted, fully furled, pristinely white sails.
She imagined that the breeze was not reliably calm, nor steady, nor dependably able.
Instead, one day it turned
Truculent, capricious, even spiteful, at once violently argumentative and then, without warning,
Truant, vacating its work and leaving them stranded on sea waters
Turned briny, gray and cold. They floated aimlessly, helplessly, or spun and tossed, so that they lost track of the course they had set, and an inscrutable horizon
Offered them no discernible marks by which to guide their way.
That vessel that had once sparkled with purpose and promise became confining, and its
Hard points and jutting nails bruised their tender muscles and soft, fleshy places which
Toughened and sinewed due to the harsh course they found themselves taking.
Under unyielding sunlight, their soft, pink faces and hands and arms grew lined, spotted, cracked.
Lost on the vast stretch of ocean, unable to harness the wind or read the starlight maps,
They had despaired of ever finding whatever it was that they had been looking for,
And realized that they had forgotten the location of their destination,
Even its name or how to describe it, other than with vague terms like happiness or comfort or safety or companionship or contentment or
Love.
They grew so thirsty, not just to moisten their parched tongues and cracking lips,
But to fill their empty spaces inside, caverns so deep and formless, that they
Dipped their aching hands into the seawater, and drank.
As she knew, and as they had forgotten somehow, she realized,
From their glintless eyes and gleamless hair and gaunt torsos,
That seawater is full of salt and offers no nourishment, no replenishing relief.
It is a drink that only makes you ever more thirsty, and leaches your soul.
So she realized, as she looked at their faces, how they had come to this place.
They had sailed without a sextant, unknowing of stars,
Without fresh water, lacking the equipment or expertise to catch fish,
And had trusted the fickle wind to keep them on course and moving forward.
They had been merely gullible, and fell for a sucker's bargain offered as a tempting lure
By a wicked world, and, finding themselves without hope midway,
Drank seawater to stay alive.
They were alive, but not living.
Although the maps were printed on their faces, they could not read them.
Moored on a distant outcropping of earth, they could move forward no more,
And at least here was an endless supply of the briny drink.
She reminded herself that before she continued her own journey, she must be
Knowing of stars, and how to read them to guide her way forward,
Or else she might become desperate too, so needing of nourishment that
She might begin to sip saltwater, thinking it was wine,
Holding its cold kiss to her lips and wishing it were the
Warm touches of someone on that distant and seemingly unreachable shore.
