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I grew roots today. My body clings to the reef, latching onto budding polyps and the castoff shells of crustaceans by the seaside fish market. Their bodies become food, calcifying my flesh and preserving my lungs. As I breathe, tiny minnows enter my body, feeding off barnacles, living and dying inside of me. I curl against the pier, clutching to tarred wood, my fingers growing into it, through it. It becomes a part of me, and I hold it like a lover. I infuse the wood with my essence. We become one, and with the pier in my arms, I sleep.
* * *
The post snaps. My body absorbs it and becomes strong. I support the pier, the people above oblivious. I could let them fall. I could drop them into the sea, and let them swim, or die, or become reefs of their own. I hold tight. Creatures cluster around me, and my body encapsulates them. I feed on coral and mollusk and minnow. He is above me, legs dangling over the edge. He sits alone, unprotected. I retreat into myself. He takes a ring from his pocket and discards it into the waters. I catch it. I hold it, and it becomes a part of me. He leaves, and I breathe a minnowed sigh. I hold tight to the earth as my body grows upward, peering out of the water at the pier’s edge.
* * *
They watch me. First villagers, then scientists. They take samples of my skin, grown high above the water. The pier strains beneath my weight, but I am precious. They build new supports, and buttress me on columns of stone. The air dries my body, and it flakes and cracks. Where men probe, I grow spikes, defending myself from their touch. They break the spikes, and probe further. They find nothing. He watches from across the road, and I shrink within myself, to the wet core of my body. The minnows speak to me. I listen.
* * *
The pier collapses. Bodies join me in the water, impaled upon my spikes. The village erupts. They pick at me, trying to retrieve loved ones from cold waves and creeping coral. They are already a part of me. I collect their tools, digging deep into my body. I feed on iron and bone and tears, and my body grows beyond the pier, onto concrete and asphalt. I creep onto land, ever expanding, ever seeking. He stands across the street, manning the porch of the home we once shared. Fear fills his eyes and my heart. I retreat to the ocean.
* * *
I cry. My tears are lost to salt and sea, and to the enormity of my self. I cry for those I hurt, now deep within my body. For the lives I changed with my passing. In deep valleys, where light will never reach, dark creatures console me, blind, unknowing. Years pass, and I prod upward, toward the light. I fill the depths, and finally, I emerge.
* * *
I think of him. My body spans reefs and islands, and upward into the sky, where the air grows thin. I grow higher, seeking to escape the earth and sea and dreams. The air is gone. There is no higher to grow. My feet cover miles, growing ever outward, resisting the attacks of tanks and explosives. I grow a shell, hard as diamond, strong as steel. The attacks continue from ground and air, and I retreat. In my core, I build a cocoon. I fall asleep to the whisper of minnows.
* * *
I rest. The sun passes over me in periods of light and dark. They harden me. They soften me. I rest for months, years, as the world passes around me, changing, evolving, becoming more than I could have imagined. In my cocoon, I question what was left behind. I grow strong enough to consider the impossible. I break through.
* * *
The tanks are gone. The explosions are gone. My ends meet, coming together and sealing the land below. My veins branch, spanning thousands of miles, creating tunnels and pockets where humanity resides. They build cities and homes within my body. They thrive on the food that I provide, make family and culture and art. They paint beautiful portraits of my body, of the ocean, of a tiny seaside village where a pier once stood. I watch over them, hold them close within me. I listen to their prayers.
* * *
I am not a god.
I am trying.
* * *
Originally Published in Hexagon Magazine.