'The Daily Catch: of rock stars, idols and quiet women' by Vikki C

The pier has its purpose in summer. Where once I wore thin dresses and ballads — a clear disclaimer for what crimes I might commit between the humid palms of a stranger.

You stride barefoot on the rickety planks which feel too weak for four decades of you — pretend it's your stage, your time. Here is where the loneliest drop of ocean lands, amidst the trawlers, sliced by dusklight. 

The daily catch of shimmering silver, a lost currency, heaped on a floating barge. I have never felt more detached from my humanness, wanting to lie down as part of a crowd that catches the light — reflecting it with grace until both source and sheen die in hideous red afterglow.

Meanwhile, a bearded man in a white shirt, sleeves rolled, shows us the illusion of not sinking. He is light enough it seems, casting his existential net lifetimes away into the wide unknown where islands appear like precious jade from above. Where the earth is good and calm to a tentative angel. A soundless meditation. 

They watch me move with the crowd, supported by still-warm bodies, as he pulls us closer to shore. The effort is an odyssey. A myth that weighs a tombstone beyond measure. But his strength surpasses death, for now. We land heavy on a bed of rock, ready to unfeel the metal — the hook which should have reeled us in faster. 

I gasp into your milky eyes, seeing the last of myself reflected back. But you've already left for the next world, exalted by sunset and a languid siren. I accept, this is a different surrender. The song dedication is for another. No second chance to float, discarded, or breathe beneath the surface, quiet bait drowsing in its own hunger — not even as a woman.