People are always telling me
how it's more likely
to be struck by lightning.
"There's no reason to be afraid,"
they'll all say,
which is easy to believe
before looking down and realizing
there's a comfortable hundred yards
between them and the waterline.
A perfect littoral hiding place.
Three fourths of our planet
and most of us are too terrified
to admit that the
allure of the sea
extends watercolor currents
and views that merit
million dollar beachfront realty.
Tiny sailboats
on sun-soaked horizons.
Plastic formulated sandcastles,
family portraits in white
at sunset.
There have only been
two thousand reported shark attacks
in the last four hundred years.
Over a thousand people
under the age of twenty-five die
per day
in car accidents.
And yet we'll speed
on congested highways
without a second thought
but not a toe is dipped
into the Atlantic
after dusk.
Relativity is risk's biggest downfall.
I can't count
the number of times
I've sprinted up the stairs
without even thinking
about the probability
of losing my footing
and smashing my skull
on the next step.
But the ocean, man,
it wigs me out
And I don't recall a time
when I was ever
amongst breaking waves,
completely at peace.
I've thought of death only casually--
compared it to simply
shutting off the lights,
or falling asleep forever.
On days it would feel like
it wouldn't matter
too much
if I were gone,
how, then
I wouldn't have to deal with
all of the coming uncertainties
and the mess that would
inevitably follow.
"It's been pretty good so far,
it's only a matter of time before
I fuck up."
But that's a cowardly mentality
and my crippling fear
of hurting other people
took care of that problem,
anyway.
Fear--it's ubiquitous.
Afraid of heights
Afraid of hospitals
Afraid of the dark.
These things separate
us from sharks--
as apex predators,
they fear
virtually nothing.
It is a presence that is
felt beyond
their watery province.
Distant sightings clear beaches,
shock waves ripple outward
from a surfer's
phantom limb
(The heroic tale
of being mistaken for a seal).
In minutes,
the guilty motherfucker
is gone,
stalking another school of fish,
but his star quality
will land him
a prime time slot
on tonight's news.
Maybe if sharks
were aware of their popularity,
they'd be more ruthless,
terrorize more coastal communes.
They'd live up
to the movie myths
and Discovery Channel speculations.
Somehow,
with their thick gray bodies
and emotionless black eyes,
they've won our silly human hearts
as much as
any other carnivorous dinosaur.
And their teeth hang
around our necks
on tacky leather cords
--an artless testimony
to our fascination
with the forces
we can't control.
The sad fact
is that I've never seen
"Save the Sharks!"
printed on buttons and tee shirts.
How can you revere
a creature that possesses
such raw power,
such fatal indiscretion?
But how can you not?
I like to believe that
if it came to it
I'd let a shark have me.
I invaded his territory,
fucked with his mealtime.
A maritime murder
is a fitting death sentence
for someone
who spent so much time
naively contemplating the deep.
It's a classic case
of fatal happenstance
and if Jaws started circling,
I like to think that
it'd be
just as
cinematic.
It'd be a terrifying way to go
but surely more dignified
than choking on a chicken bone.
But, who knows?
Maybe I'd still fight back
with everything I had
just to be able to tell people
that there is a reason to be afraid.
Suicide by shark attack--
how pathetic,
how impossible.
A pretentious,
noncommittal way out.
Mortality isn't common enough--
mostly the shark bites
just to fuck with you
And surfer bloodshed
is certainly more noble
than my own.
Death and sharks.
Comparatively,
there's no correlation.
The tides were never ours
for the taking,
but we decided that
sharks are scary
and now a tiny cut
will beach you
until the bleeding subsides.
So if I die
in the jaws
of that
aquatic serial killer--
a salt water surrender
to his finned finesse--
know that I'd find it poetic
And I'd be trying
not to be afraid
the whole
gory
way
down.
