we learn early how to cup silence like salt. our mothers teach us to braid our hair before storms, to never name the waves. the sea does not love you back — she only mirrors what you most fear to lose. at low tide, i find pieces of myself: a spoon from childhood, the voice i swallowed whole in sixth grade, a fishbone shaped like uncertainty. i kissed a boy once who said his mouth tasted like shipwreck. he
wasn’t wrong. some nights i dream of running into the surf until i vanish — not drowned, just gone. like the girls in stories who turn into foam, or wind, or myth.
there is a language only the moon and i still speak. it sounds like this:
stay.
go.
surface.
sink.
anchor.
drift.
Idia Enoma is a young writer and current high school senior originally from New York, now living between Georgia and a boarding school in New England. She has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and is an editor for Girls Right the World magazine. She is also an alum of the University of Pennsylvania’s Kelly Writers House Summer Workshop, and has work forthcoming in Eunoia Review. She is often found cataloging half-heard conversations or writing letters she’ll never send.