Elizabeth Ruth Deyro is a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer and editor from Laguna, Philippines. Her works have appeared or is forthcoming in Rust + Moth, Rising Phoenix Review, Hypertrophic Literary, Jellyfish Review, and The Poetry Annals, among others, and profiled in Maudlin House, Luna Luna Magazine, and TERSE. She is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of The Brown Orient, Associate Editor of Half Mystic, and Publisher of the forthcoming Reclaim: An Anthology of Women’s Poetry.

Her author site is elizabethruthdeyro.weebly.com. She can also be found on Twitter and Instagram at @notjanedeyro. 

They hear my voice when the ocean speaks

Cold waters caress my feet like lovers kept apart
by chance. Foam meets flesh. Flesh kisses sand deeply,
forming wet clay against my soles. I press harder—
frail attempts to leave imprints of a soul wandering
the oceans barefoot. I watch the waves
tuck the earth back into its initial form, taking my mark off
through constant cleansing.

I descend further
with every step toward the horizon.
Let the ocean paint me blue, take
my half-full vessel and lead me to depths
unbeknown to man. I shall hold my breath
until the air kisses me back to life.