The wind is whipping the ocean surface into churning whitecaps, tossing the tall ship high and catching her bow low. The acidic sting of vomit still burns my throat, and my stomach refuses to settle. My eyes glaze over as another wave of nausea strikes. I’ve nothing left to wretch, but wretch I do. With knuckles paler than the foamy spray that splashes aboard to wet them, I can no longer feel my fingers.

Though the sun shines brightly, it is frigid in the shadow of the sail, this cold, disheartening reality lying in such stark contrast to the free-spirited verse of many a poetic constructor, I amongst their naive flock.

Subconscious thoughts of regret begin to surface, but my heart spurs their blasphemous advance. My brain is throbbing, screaming at this tumultuous upheaval of balance and order, insisting its end. I will not listen, for such a voice is death, the sort which seems seductively short and subtle, but is in reality long and drawn out, miserable and lonely.

“You don’t belong here,” it states. “No human was meant to traverse such a treacherous thing.”

Breath alone escapes my lips.

“You see that woman over there, the one crying, screaming out, begging for mercy? At least she can publicly admit what you refuse to see: This is not the place of inspiration you so longingly wish it to be, but instead exists solely as a fabrication, a falsely-conceived metaphorical blanket in which to wrap your pathetic search for purpose. That knot in your gut is more than seasickness; it is the undeniable knowledge that I am right.”

I hear only the wind against the sail.

“Your silence betrays you. Where are your grand stanzas now, wordsmith?”

Mustering the strength to stand up, I haphazardly walk across the deck to the opposite rail. I stumble the way there, my body barely holding it together. I vomit again into the sea, my sacrifice to the endless blue. Spitting the terrible taste from my mouth, I raise my eyes to the horizon, to the small chunk of land which looms ahead.

It screams now, desperate. “All this hell but for a few lines of verse, you damned fool!”

More than verse.

My eyes lift higher, to the lighthouse atop the cliff. Set against a cloudless sky, a mighty pillar suspended between heaven and earth, it calls my heart, sings with a voice louder than any that has ever haunted my mind.

Life.

I am aware of the pain, yet I don’t care. I heave overboard again, forcing my eyes from the ivory tower, but never my soul. Even but for such a momentary flicker of beauty, all of the journeys through hell and back are made joyous, and my heartbeat given purpose.

The voice is mute, the pain fading, the memory forever.