Vessels

​Buoy lights burst radial flame across the water. The flashes of it lapping against my chest betrayed the dark blood leaking from the wound. A ship of inconceivable size transformed the waters into powerful swells and valleys. I worried someone might spot me but I finally recognized a figure so high in the darkness, it had no features, no details. Just a silhouette. A black cutout leaning over a rail. The swells lifted me high and away from it and it disappeared into the void. I wanted to grab the buoy but she had told me to let them pass. She would find me. I cannot imagine how but she did find me. She dragged me into the boys’ tiny vessel, bobbing under the glitter of the stars, the real pain just beginning to set in.