Saltwater Child

Leopold Crow

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I am a saltwater boy. I come from the South England seasides and was born with a fierce white spray on my pre-summer lips. I am the child of a bitter wind and the cry of black-headed gulls; I am the child of dancing barefoot in the white-horse waves crashing and frothing upon the shingles, and going to the little seafront funfair with my granny, and getting too scared to go on the helter-skelter. 

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I never had a head for heights, dizzied and not ready for the fall. I think a lot about falling, and I’m never quite sure if I’m falling from grace or falling in love. Maybe both. Childhood crushes; I’m always one to be a little bit of a romantic. I don’t think this was meant to be a love letter, but the thing is, by the time I realise these things it’s always too late. 

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According to my mother, I am an overreaction. Odd, peculiar, strange. I am a clap of thunder, a tidal wave, an overwhelming thought, a swirl of hurricane emotion hidden behind a deceptively calm surface. I don’t know how much of that you’ve seen—probably more than I’d like—but it’s better than just being a cold flat reflection. I hope you don’t get caught in the riptide. 

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You are not a saltwater boy. You come from the South England countrysides and you were born with a little sadness and a little pride and a little of something else I can’t quite place. You’re a summer child: records playing, half a mug of coffee and halfway down a Wikipedia article at 2am. If I hold up a conch shell to my ear, I can hear the ELO from your bedroom. There’s a little thunderstorm in you too, blown in from another front, right up onto the moors, inked carefully onto your heart in your spidery handwriting, like parchment. 

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Maybe we’ll walk around the marketplace again when we’re not crushed by the weight of the world and eat clotted-cream fudge and fajitas as we all watch the ducks on the bench along the shrouded river. There’s always the taste of sea water on my lips. You are a thunderstorm boy, lungs charged with a crackle of electricity, a skip in your step as you break into a run, the hum of strings and bees. I am a saltwater child, the roar of the waves trapped in my throat, wellington boots stomped into the wet sand and a tin of shells on my bedroom bookshelf.