A Study in Drowning

by Ava Reid

What is a mermaid but a woman half-drowned, What a selkie but an unwilling wife, What a tale but a sea-net, snatching up both From the gentle tumult of dark waves?

We must discuss, then, the relationship between women and water. When men fall into the sea, they drown. When women meet the water, they transform. It becomes vital to ask: is this a metamorphosis, or a homecoming?

Men liked to keep mad women locked up where everyone could comfortably forget they ever existed.

I was a woman when it was convenient to blame me, and a girl when they wanted to use me.