Sometimes, I find myself wondering what the ocean is made of.

Is it the foaming tide that soaked my toes one summer,

When the future was far away

And I was trapped in little-kid wonderings?

Or, is it the bizarre blend of hydrogen and oxygen inexplicably combined together,

An embodiment of the colour blue?

Or maybe, it is the body of the refugee

Who never quite found a home for himself,

Whose heart is a mere half-beating, tangled mess of veins and endless pain?

Perhaps the ocean is the blood of yesterday’s casualties,

That flashed across my television screen,

Eyes clouded with a ghastly sheen.

I am trying to be both happy and pay attention to the world around me,

And I’m not sure if both are possible at the same time.

They’ve told us not to burn our bridges,

But right here in front of my eyes,

Kerosene is kissing the wood and burning it to ash and embers.

Don’t we deserve a second chance?

We can build not just a bridge, but an empire from these ashes,

For there is always more than one way to heal our world.

Sometimes, I find myself wondering what the ocean is made of.

And right now,

It seems like hope coloured in shades of ultramarine.