30 Day Picture Prompt Challenge

Treasure

Awaken mortal man, you are mine now
for I swam beneath storm frothed waters
to pull you screaming from the depths;
with air squeezing life from your drenched body,
with salt thick upon your lips.
Your ship is lost, foundered
upon the knife edged rocks
that my grotto guard. Your men
float lifeless for I would not
save them all. Soon, their shells
will be but fodder for shark and eel.
Your treasures will litter the coral,
far less golden than your life
but will you think it too vast a fee to pay?

Awaken mortal man, you now belong to me,
for you cannot test the waves that batter
those who seek to hoard the heavy weight
of the golden treasure. For it will pull you down,
drown you. It is unforgiving.
I shall keep you with your land-green eyes,
your sun lit hair and your legs that are so foreign
in my world, so useless to propel you through
wave and surf. There is no escape for you
but you will live, breath brine-soaked air and
be grateful. There is cool water to slack your thirst
and I shall feed you bits of fish, my pet.

Awaken mortal man, here is your destiny.
Hear the screech of timber and mast?
Wood is of the land, in truth, not of my oceans.
Would that you had learned that the sea
will not be denied her bounty.
You men who seek romance in mermaid lore,
who seek to tell strange tales of we
who swim beneath the salted waters must
be denied. You will not carry tales to those
who would seek to destroy what we are.
In time, you may earn my trust
and I shall breath for you and show you
the realm of the merfolk, and you will,
perchance, desire to stay. No matter
for you shall never leave. You are mine.


Awaken mortal man, dream no more
of surface life. My lair now
your gilded cage. I need no lock or key;
you are beholden to me. I am your keeper
and your mortal lungs cannot pull air
from my waters. You are alive,
but your life shall never be the same.
Should somehow, you escape, and you will not,
having been with me, no mere mortal female
can ever sway your heart for they no longer
will have anything to offer you. Should I teach
you of the kelpen way that you can stay
overlong beneath white tipped wave?
If I so choose, you will never again
be able to breath the air of land. Here
you are safe, ensconced within my cavern.
I needs must think on it. You are
my treasure now, pretty, mortal man.

Awaken mortal man, do you think me
beautiful? My golden scales are queenly born,
my lips the pink of coral sands, my hair
as fine as the strands that sway beneath
a man o' war. I am as beautiful, and as deadly.
It matters not how you find me for I
am your life or your death. I hold
that pulsing muscle you call a heart in my fist.
I have seen the hearts of man, flayed open,
shredded by tooth and sword. I found no epic
tales in bloody sinew, heard no songs
in salt-washed meat. Can you learn, I ponder
that it was never the heart, but the mind that ensorces,
ensnares the willing with both intent and honor?
We have all the time we need, for your
mortal clocks have no basis here. Only tides.
The moon-wash measures the worth of a soul
and only that determines the ebb and flow of life.
Awaken now, my mortal one, your tide has just begun.







618 words