The Second Writing Prize Winner –
SUMMER 2023
is Sorim Lee
of Ann Arbor Michigan
BLUE LULLABY
By Sorim Lee
It is raining when my mother takes me to the ocean, gripping the palms of my youth with her callused hands, ushering me to shore. I pant as she hurriedly runs to the surface of the ocean, stopping only when the tips of her toes touch the chilling kiss of the tide. She drags me along the bay with her hands reaching towards a sea of blue, as if calling to her. The waves rush back and forth, cradling her ankles with the sway of a mother, pulling her into the warmth of the horizon that makes her eyes glisten.
The breeze sweeps her face, and her unseen tears soak into her aging hair strands, dripping down into the ocean and becoming part of the blue. The waves usher in as if yearning for her touch. Wrapping around her ankles, drowning the edge of her dress as if she’s blending in with the vast sea. She continues to grip my hands as she walks ahead into the ocean with increasing uncertainty, the grooves of her fingers aligning with the creases of my own. She holds my hand with a strengthening grip with every footstep, water rising throughout her veins and throughout her legs. I fear the ocean, but I remain hand clasped with hers despite the waves that engulf my every being.
It’s only when she’s halfway drowning, halfway baptized and waist-lined with the blue that she locks her eyes onto my own, tears falling, and the waves carry us back to shore.
—Page1
I sit on the edge of my bed as she cradles me into her arms, lulling me of the ocean’s calling. She tells me the waves are reaching out to her, murmuring whispers of longing affection into her ear. Telling me the tides are a sign for her to follow— a sign for her departure. I’m far too tired to respond, nor remember what said ‘sign’ was, but the wind chimes outside my door roar in warning — clashing in metal harmony, disrupting every time my mother mutters a single word about the vast blue sea. “The ocean is my mo-” CLANG. “It’s calling for m-” CLANG. The wind chimes protect me from the truth, and I fall asleep by the 16th ringing clash of metal, unable to remember the lines in between. By the time I awake the morning after, the wind chimes disappear. My door stands bare and lonely.
I ask her where the wind chimes have gone, reminding her of when we found it: rushed up to shore, carried by the wind as a blessing in disguise — enlightening our home with the telegraphic messages of breezing wind and breathless humming. It’s just the two of us, lonesome and empty, the only sound remaining being the rushing movement of surging tides. But the wind chimes gave our home sound, gave it warning.
Her eyes stare blankly, pupils darkening with heavy gray clouds. I don’t need an answer to know she threw them away, and I confirm it when she carries me out to the seashore and my eyes find them hastily buried under the pellets of sand. I make no effort to uncover my wind chimes — a lost memory meant to be buried — instead, I simply wonder why she went out to the sea without me, and why her usual tight, callused grip on my hands was slowly loosening its hold.
The wind chime is lost, but the sound of clanging metal remains echoing in my ears.
—Page 2
When my mother bore me, it was raining; waves crashing, and wind relentless. She was young, motherless, and utterly alone beside the small blanket of flesh — a copy of herself. She cried when she first locked eyes with my own, not out of happiness or disgust, but because she was used to solitude. The living, breathing me made her feel numb and uncertain. The rain was unforgiving and as the water started to seep through the roof of our quaint home, flooding, was it then that the tears emerged, and I drowned myself in the cries of being born. She claims amid the blank desolation, the ocean sang a soft melody to her and her newborn baby and was it then that I stopped wailing. Cradled by the waves, drifting into sleep. She says the ocean was her saving grace. I am certain if it weren’t for the ocean, I too would be buried, disregarded, under the sand like my beloved wind chimes.
The clash of metal, the beginning years of my life were ridden with uncertainty. A young mother with no direction, guiding herself by the movement of the tides — she says it’s because of the comforting lullabies of the ocean that both she and I remain breathing. Chest heaving up and down with every wave that ushers back and forth. Back and forth. I pretend to understand. I don’t ridicule, nor do I question why we make daily trips out to the shore. ‘It’s to say thank you,” she says, and I allow my hands to enclose her own as she drags me out to the ocean. I don’t complain of the burning sand that ravishes my toenails, and I lay on the sand, boring myself with the marble on the seashore and the sight of my mother, who stares into the horizon. Eyes bright, her eyelashes making slight way for me to uncover the twinkle that glistens in the abyss of blue.
The ocean is unable to speak, but she claims it whispers to her.
—Page 3
She is beautiful, but she is broken. My mother’s eyes remain blank, bleak; only when she stares afar into the horizon of blue rippling layers, do her eyes slightly glisten with the reflection of sunlight. She is stagnant, gazing at me with love only a mother could behold, with bright shining, yellow grins, and soft, plush kisses to the temple of my forehead every morning as I wake. As much as I tempt her, and purposefully exasperate her with the antics of hormonal, teenage simplemindedness, she never yells— she either stares at me, emotionless and unwavering, or caresses my face with temple kisses and bright smiles. I am unable to tell which of the two is worse. She stares blankly even after I return home in the late hours of the day with rejections of blue, uncleansed, and dirty with regretful actions. Locking my own eyes with her cloudy gray ones, she looks at me and turns away— but she’s not disappointed— rather, empty. I have never seen my mother angered, nose scrunched up with incense, forehead wrinkled with red steaming from the ears— no, my mother only emanates blue, resembling. She cries whenever we face the tempting vastness of the ocean, tears drowning her being as she steps ever closer towards the ends of the earth, my hand gripped firmly in hers. I only see her emotions in the reflection of blue, shimmering tear droplets. Precipitation falling from her clouded eyes that drop into the endless waters, becoming.
My mother does not drink, she does not smoke, she does not hit, but nonetheless, I can tell that she’s drowning in the intoxication of the ocean. An alcoholic of the blue, drunken stupor that she claims to whisper to her, with sweet, chaste temple kisses upon her own forehead. My mother does not do drugs, but she is an addict. I see her stretching, reaching her arms and tips of her fingers to the unseen ends of the ocean, heaving her chest up and down, slowly. She’s breathing along with the clash of waves as if the ocean waters seep through her entire being. Engulfing her veins and making her vulnerable to the salt drowning her lungs. She is flooding, drowning in her own demise as she seeks penance to the lord. Her knees scraped against brittle pellets of sand as she baptizes herself in the caress of the waters. My mother becomes anxious when she does not face the abyss of the sea, biting her nails until red droplets fall into a sea of blue melancholy. On the days when her nails are blistering red and peeling, when the skin surrounding is bitten off and bleeding, are the days when the tides exceptionally rage. It’s no tobacco, it’s no heroin, but the times I see my mother reaching out towards the vast blue sea, the warning clashes of my buried metal wind chimes continue to softly dwell in my ears.
I’d rather her be an addict to drugs, not the blue.
—Page 4
For the first time in my youth, I refuse to entwine my hands with her own and be carried out to the ocean. Hormones are my excuse for acting rashly, but it is my own selfishness to blame when I scream at her to get rid of her obsession. I shout that the waves are not breathing, are not living. I shout that the ocean is a hallucination and for her to snap out of the distorted reality she is living. Though they are not present, dwelling under the forgotten confines of sand, the roars of my metal wind chimes echo in my ear as an omen. Clashing back and forth, ringing throughout my head along the movement of the tides rushing ashore. The regret starts to drown my being after the words escape my lips. My mother does not react. Her pupils are cloudy, and I see her corneas glisten with rain. She is not seething nor mad, as I would have hoped. There is no sound but the clanging of metal raging in my ears. We exchange no words, no expression. My mother smiles, infuriatingly, in bright, shining yellow, and she leaves our quaint home in the pouring blue with the waves crashing against the cage of my heartbeat.
My mother gave life to me when it was raining, and she ends her own life in the same setting. Reaching out and grabbing hold of the blue lullaby she was guided by as a young girl, and now leaving a copy of herself in me as she baptizes herself in palms of the horizon. Leaving none of herself except for her soft melodies that ring inside of my ears. I wonder if this was the ocean’s calling she was referring to — whispers of affection that serenade to me a soft lullaby my mother once sang. The rain pours unforgivingly as I drown myself in my own tears, blending in with the blue of ocean’s embrace. Echoing clashes of wind chimes are replaced with the chanting lyrics of my mother’s loneliness, as the tides grip my ankles and usher back and forth, back and forth. The horizon dawns with sun’s warmth, a sign of new beginnings as my hair breezes across the sides of my face. Soaking my tears, becoming blue.
The waves rage, cradling me back and forth to the affection of my mother: drying my tears, and lulling me to sleep.
Page 5
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About the author:
Hello! My name is Sorim Lee and I’m a rising senior in Ann Arbor, Michigan, who has a passion for writing and creating art. I love writing about people dear to me and pouring emotions into the work I write! I think being vulnerable is truly so crucial in writing, and I love being able to express my emotions through my pieces! Thank you! ~Sorim Lee
