The Shape of Water

The Shape of Water

You are the shape of water but frozen solid through.

Your heart sealed up tight, your color a deep blue.

I turned the orange sun to you, hoping you would melt,

But you stayed locked in ice, hiding everything you felt.

So I climbed onto the slippery surface of your frozen lake,

Pressed the heat of my heart to you, praying it would take.

Slowly, you thawed, took on a liquid form, but I was so scared you'd leave,

So I fell through your shallows, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe.

I sunk down to the bottom, wanting you to surround me, to draw me in.

Before you I was wandering in a desert; I never knew I could swim.  

But you are the shape of water, ever flowing, always slipping through.

You have the power to cleanse or kill, and I can’t get ahold of you.

You boiled, spun me around, set your brackish waters to churn.

I sank deeper and deeper, lost in the darkness, making my lungs burn.

But I found your lakebed, and I kissed the glowing pulse of your core.

I sang to you a siren song as I calmed the waves at your shore.

You are the shape of water, the spring of life, a peace, and I could finally inhale.

For you are the harbor I've needed, always here when the others fail.

Water is a catalyst, changing everything it touches, tames the lands that roam.

So I grew gills, soaked myself in you and in you made a home.

“Why do you put up with me?” I asked as the moon sank, its time done.

“Because I was bitterly cold my entire life, and you brought me the sun.”

You hold me tight, buoying me up, weaving through everything I see.

You are the shape of water, the shape of love, the shape of you and me.

I just bought The Shape of Water, and it's a beautiful love story about a mute woman and a fish god. Bear with me for a moment, if you will. I know the premise sounds bananas, but you have more in common with that mute girl and the fish man than you think. Her love for him, this violent creature, changes him. Love saves him. It saves her. Love. Love will always be the most powerful emotion in the world. It changes men, changes worlds, changes history. Every person in this movie is lonely and looking for love. Some live for it. Some die for it. But like water, love can give us life or take it away. Love can be dangerous yet beautiful. The scariest thing that we constantly chase after. Water can be violent or calming, depending on the circumstances. Waters flood and destroy, wash everything away. Rivers can drown. Love has the same power. One time it can rip you apart, but the next it can rebuild. We live with the risk of love because, like water, we all need it to survive. 

Love can make you look past layers of a glass wall, into the frigid waters, through the hazel eyes of a tortured soul, to a man with war inside his heart, but it's a good heart, a kind heart. If the woman from The Shape of Water can love the monster out of a man, surely I can help carry some baggage, relieve some of the burdens, and love him out of the arctic abyss and bring him into the summer sunshine. But what if this love changes me, too? What if I shine the sun on him, and he sucks the rays of my light out and leaves me? I guess that's the risk. I'm diving into a frozen lake that might not have a lakebed. I might get lost in the depths, too. But maybe the water will thaw and nourish me, and I can make a life by the lake. Or I could drown. So you see, water and love are much alike, and I'm still trying to figure out if the water is going to sink me or save me.