There are some poems that start with an idea.
And then there are some that quietly become about something much bigger while you’re writing them.
The Siren Who Could Not Sing started with a simple question:
What happens to a siren who can’t sing?
Not one whose voice was stolen.
Not one who eventually discovers some hidden, magical song.
Just—
a siren who cannot do the one thing everyone says a siren is supposed to do.
And the more I sat with that idea, the less this poem became about sirens.
Because I think a lot of us know what it feels like to live inside an expectation we were never able to meet.
The Siren Who Could Not Sing
They knew something was wrong
the first time I opened my mouth
and the sea stayed still.
No sailors turned their heads.
No ships changed course.
No man forgot
the name of the woman
waiting for him at home.
Nothing happened.
My sisters sang
and entire oceans
leaned closer.
I sang—
and heard only
the small, broken sound
of breath.
A siren
without a voice.
There are cruelties
even mythology
doesn’t prepare you for.
To be born
with a name
that promises something
your body
cannot give.
They tried to teach me.
Again.
Again.
Breathe deeper.
Try harder.
You aren’t trying.
As though effort
could grow music
inside a throat
that had never learned
how to hold it.
Eventually,
they stopped asking me
to sing with them.
That hurt more.
I would sit
on the rocks
and watch my sisters
become everything
we were created to be.
Beautiful.
Terrible.
Unavoidable.
Their songs
crossed miles of water.
Mine couldn’t cross
my own lips.
So I became useful
in other ways.
I watched the horizon.
Counted ships.
Collected what the ocean
returned.
Learned the names
of constellations
because stars
never asked me
to perform.
Still,
I hated them sometimes.
My sisters.
Not because
they could sing.
Because they never had
to wonder
who they would be
if they couldn’t.
Do you know
what it does to you
to lose something
everyone insists
is the reason
you exist?
You start believing
absence
is the same thing
as failure.
You start introducing yourself
with an apology.
You start thinking
almost
is another word
for worthless.
Then one night,
a ship broke apart
against the rocks.
There had been no song.
No seduction.
Only a storm
with no interest
in who deserved
to survive it.
A sailor washed ashore.
Alive.
Barely.
He looked at me
and begged,
“Please.”
I opened my mouth.
Nothing.
Of course.
So I didn’t sing.
I pulled him
from the water.
Stayed beside him
until morning.
And when he woke,
he didn’t ask
why I had no song.
He didn’t ask
what kind of siren
couldn’t lure a man
to his death.
He only said,
“You saved me.”
I had never heard
those words before.
All my life,
I had been taught
that a siren’s power
was measured
by how many people
she could make
follow her voice.
No one ever told me
there might be power
in refusing
to let someone drown.
My sisters still sing.
The sea still listens.
Ships still tremble
when their voices
cross the water.
And me?
I am still silent.
Some things
do not grow back
just because
we finally understand
their absence.
But I no longer
open my mouth
and wait for music
to prove
I belong here.
I am a siren.
Not despite
the silence.
Not because of it.
I simply am.
And perhaps
the cruelest thing
they ever taught me
was that the thing
I was missing
was the thing
that made me
whole.
The part of this poem that sits heaviest with me isn’t actually the silence.
It’s this:
You aren’t trying.
Because how many times do we say some version of that to people?
Try harder.
Push yourself.
Everybody else can do it.
You just need to practice.
You just need to want it badly enough.
As though effort is some magical currency we can exchange for ability.
As though wanting something badly enough guarantees our bodies, our minds, or our circumstances will cooperate.
Sometimes they don’t.
And sometimes the cruelest thing you can do to someone who is already struggling is convince them that their inability is proof they didn’t try hard enough.
The siren spends years believing there must be something wrong with her because everyone around her possesses the thing she is missing.
Her sisters don’t even have to think about singing.
They simply open their mouths—
and the world responds.
Meanwhile, she keeps trying to become something that was never going to happen.
And I think comparison hurts the most when you’re comparing yourself to people who have never had to question the thing you’re fighting so hard to become.
They don’t know what it feels like to sit on the rocks and watch.
They don’t know what it feels like to be almost what everyone expected.
They don’t have to wonder:
Who am I if I can’t do the thing everyone says makes me who I am?
That question is the real heart of this poem.
Because we attach identity to things constantly.
A good mother does this.
A successful person looks like this.
A strong person handles things this way.
A woman should be this.
A man should provide that.
A writer should write like this.
A body should be able to do that.
And when we don’t fit whatever definition we were handed?
We start shrinking ourselves around the missing piece.
We introduce ourselves with an apology.
We explain ourselves before anyone even asks.
We start treating different like it means defective.
That’s why I didn’t want her voice to magically appear at the end.
I could have done that.
The sailor could have awakened, she could have opened her mouth, and suddenly some beautiful song could have poured out.
It would have been neat.
Hopeful.
Very fairy-tale.
And I would have hated it.
Because then the poem would still be saying she needed the song.
She would simply have suffered long enough to finally earn it.
No.
She never sings.
The thing she cannot do at the beginning is still something she cannot do at the end.
Because sometimes healing doesn’t give you back what you lost.
Sometimes acceptance doesn’t fix anything.
Sometimes understanding yourself better does not magically change the thing you had to learn to live without.
And you are still allowed to be whole.
That’s why this part matters so much to me:
I am a siren.
Not despite the silence.
Not because of it.
I simply am.
Not despite.
Because even that can become another kind of cage.
Look how successful she became despite this.
Look how strong she is despite that.
Look what she accomplished even though she is missing something.
Sometimes I think we become so obsessed with turning every difference into an inspirational story that we accidentally keep reinforcing the idea that there was something wrong with the person to begin with.
She doesn’t need to become extraordinary because she cannot sing.
She doesn’t need her silence to become a superpower.
She doesn’t need to prove that losing one thing gave her something better.
She is simply a siren.
Full stop.
And then there’s the sailor.
All her life, she has been told that a siren’s power is measured by destruction.
How many sailors turn their ships.
How many men follow the voice.
How many bodies the ocean takes.
Then someone finally looks at her and says:
You saved me.
And suddenly the definition of power changes.
Maybe the thing everyone around you values isn’t actually the thing that deserves to be valued.
Maybe being good at what your world rewards doesn’t automatically make that thing good.
Maybe you can spend your entire life believing you failed a test without ever stopping to ask:
Who wrote the test?
Our silent siren cannot lure sailors toward the rocks.
But when one reaches them anyway—
she pulls him out.
And for the first time, she understands that she was measuring herself with a ruler she never chose.
That might be my favorite thing hiding between these lines.
She doesn’t finally become the siren everyone expected.
She stops needing to.
And I think there is an enormous difference between the two.
Maybe becoming whole isn’t always about finding the missing piece.
Maybe sometimes it’s realizing you were never a collection of missing pieces in the first place.
Until next time,
—Destiny
P.S. Have you ever spent so much time trying to become who you thought you were supposed to be that you forgot to ask who you actually were?
