Unharbored Elsewhere, by Rayji de Guia
You wash ashore, cheeks sun-bleached,half-obscured by a burst of barnacles as brine rushes in the gash of your neck, and out. Unbodiedmust feel like living anew. If I pry the shells open, is there anythingbeneath the undulations on your eye? But there is nothingto worry about; ugliness is not a fault—to exist, undesired, unbothered. Within, let go of your needto squelch through folds among folds for the algae bloom.How many nights have you longed for a body of land never claimed, oncethe wasting flesh of the old had drowned? Was it ever a dream that youwould be a muse,sprawled over a beach towel; a beloved,bikini untied in the heat of summer; an image,couched between horizon and shore.You would have been unharbored elsewhere. Of course, let us be honest, you are regurgitatedby the ocean herself, a skull of what remainsof a siren’s call. Here you are, and here I am, lured by how appalling you are. Rayji de Guia is a fictionist, poet, and illustrator. Her work can be found in Asian Cha, harana poetry, The Pinch, and elsewhere. She was a poet resident at Sangam House in 2019 and a fellow for fiction in the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in 2021. Later this year, she will be a …