BEWARE YOUR SIREN

Contributor Roger Luthford tells the tale of a relentless siren, her powerful waves tamed by the watchful gaze of the moon high above.  

The lurch of the mind is a curious one. It wanders into ideas that do not prove useful for the mind's survival in a perilous world. Much like the tide is subject to the Moon's sway and motion, so is our perspective. This lurch alters our perspective, to see the worst in what is done, to fear the life around you so that you may protect your own. This siren that sways our judgement plays on our fears, and dreadfully seduces us to its movement so that we may rock with it and let it dominate our lives as it once did mine.

As all sirens are, they are persuasive creatures that allure their prey into their arms and feast on their temptations, their most unfulfilled needs that they desperately want satisfied. Here it is where it consumed me and my lust for justice for my perceived misfortune. 

I once had the most hellish siren lull me into its sway. It taught me to be fearful, distrusting of this world, and I let it. I saw things fall out of routine. I saw long awaited responses turn into hours of silence; that pain festered and blossomed into a quiet rage. Not only towards myself was this anger directed, but onto others as well. I hid from this world in my room and in my mind, places where most could not reach. It was with strenuous austerity that I kept myself from others, deprived them of my mind, my time, and my presence, for this siren had convinced me so. I was a tool for others, a transaction to be made, a burden to be passed around, so that no one may bear my weight for too long. This quiet rage had battered me like a ship in rough seas, shredding my heart. This pain, an icy burn that ran through my body, had been wrought to justify my isolation. 

This siren was singing my ninth symphony. 

Although, I was able to find comfort in a girl. She would help me steer my course and love me gently in her embrace when others had not before. A love so tender and gentle that it lifted the wind in my sail to keep going.

However, if you were to think that these pains would be quelled by the aid of a lover, you’d be wrong. They would instead be exacerbated tenfold, for I was cruel to her with my silence, just like my siren had so desperately wanted, and as it had so cleverly convinced me that I wanted it too. 

But even in this ostensible denial of love and attention that fuelled my ire, I still felt that pain within my heart: that cold blazing sensation that ran through my veins like wildfire. Upon the suffering of both myself and my lover, did I realise that this destructive behaviour that spurred my silence was not the root of my suffering, but the result of my misdeeds. A pain that I interpreted for so long to be the cause of my suffering, was actually a mirror shedding  light on all that I had done. The moon reflects brightest upon calm seas after a wrathful storm.

How lucky I am to have her as my moon. Where I once hid behind clouds, my ocean of worries and misgivings shrouded in darkness, now brought to light by the moon's gentle glow. I now rock in her gentle harbour, like a baby gently rocked in its cradle, our bodies intertwined where she warms my cool surface to melt the frost around my heart; ice that I thought would preserve it. Though the siren is still there, lurking beneath the murk of the water, waiting to sing her song, the moon will be there to keep her at bay by shining her gentle glow. Sometimes the seas are rough where the siren peeps her head, but she keeps me in check, and I am ever thankful for her presence in my life to keep my waters calm. 

Revenge is sweet, but with a bitter and rotten aftertaste. To cause injury to another is an act of self-harm on our own conscience, especially to those that don't deserve it: the very people we claim to love most.