Maya Marshall
Maya Marshall is a Callaloo Fellow, a Cave Canem fellow, a fellow of the Watering Hole, and an alumna of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Her writing has appeared most recently in Blackbird, RHINO, Jasper, and The Volta. Currently, Marshall is an MFA candidate at the University of South Carolina where she is the editor of Yemassee Journal. Source
The Big Water
I want to say yes to the sea and live
with the knowledge that I am small.
I live with my knowledge, small despite
my good learning. The truth is hard.
With all my costly living, truth is still hard.
Sober, I find my mind in disarray.
To save my life, I undress this disarray.
Fear babbles beneath. Terror cannot protect.
Terror cannot protect like anger does,
and a vulnerable life leaves room for love.
A vulnerable life leaves room for you
to love yourself enough to lose someone.
To love yourself enough to lose someone is
to become the open sea, not the estuary.
Published:
2022
Length:
Shorty
Literary Movements:
Contemporary
Anthology Years:
2023
Themes:
Agency
Death & Loss
Identity
Literary Devices:
Anadiplosis
A device in which the last word or phrase of one clause, sentence, or line is repeated at the beginning of the next.
Metaphor
a comparison between two unrelated things through a shared characteristic