Five-Seven-Five

it is indeed quite aphoristic and fun to pull individual quotes. but if you want to read “october” by louise glück in its entirety, which i highly recommend, you can find it here

I visited the sea and the seals came to me, rushing and sliding over coarse grains to call me sister, sister, you’ve returned - returned to a place I’d never been before - yet after generations of missing they still recognized one of their own, stolen or runaway or just simply lost, it didn’t matter anymore. They asked me to come into the water, to come with them, to come home, but if I ever had a selkie’s skin I lost it long ago. The only salt water I have lives in my eyes, safely controlled and these days mostly run dry. Even as they returned, unwieldy on land as I would be in their breathless water, the seals reminded me: you can never go back home, so anywhere can be your home if you decide it. They slipped beneath the waves, webbed tails tossed up as they dove to a land I could never know, and I tasted it, the sea crashing within me.