Darius Phelps

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You Brought the Ocean

You brought the ocean into my apartment.
It gathered beneath the kitchen table,
settled inside the half-drunk coffee cups,
left salt gathering on the windows
where morning kept mistaking itself for mercy.
I stopped asking why my shoes were always full of sand,
why every goodbye sounded like gulls circling something already gone.
You never said love.
You handed me the Pacific instead.

After you, even the faucets seemed to remember.
Rain lingered against the windows longer than it should have.
Every glass of water carried a mouthful of distance.
The waves are still rehearsing your name until it sounds like weather.
The shore keeps returning what neither of us knew how to hold.
Some nights I wake convinced the tide has reached my bedroom door.
By morning, the floor is dry,
but I still shake sand
from the sheets.

Darius Phelps (he/him) is the author of My God’s Been Silent (Writ Large Press, 2026) and The Holy Ghost Lives In Her Laugh (Kith Books, 2026). A poet before anything else, his work bears witness to grief, faith, and the act of becoming—offering language as a form of liberation and light. Through the lens of poetic inquiry, Dr. Phelps explores how verse can function as pedagogy, healing and survival. Rooted in Black literary traditions and personal testimony, his work has been featured or is forthcoming in  Frozen Sea, wildness, Diode, Tupelo Quarterly, Matter Monthly, Cultural Daily, Een Magazine, School Library Journal, and many more.  He lives in Brooklyn, NY.