Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to be a young girl on the Titanic, standing on the deck as it sank—Second Cabin, swept up in the chaos and dread of that fateful night.
Would I have been engulfed by the torrent of cries and anguish, driven by the desperate will to survive? Crushing anyone underfoot like rotten apples in an orchard, clawing my way toward the lifeboats with sheer panic as my compass?
Or, amid the chaos, would I have stood in silence, gazing at the sky? What color—maybe a deep, satin blue cloaking the cloudy white impurities revealed at sunrise—and would I have traced trembling shapes in the shadowed icebergs floating on the horizon? Perhaps, for the first time, I might glimpse the tragedy as the final act unfolds, unfettered by the grandeur of the mighty Titanic.
Then, in a somber crescendo as the bow pulls across strings, I might find solace in the ovation, as time holds out its hand to guide us ashore, offering a tender whisper of hope amidst the sorrow.
Abigale Lin, a 14-year-old currently living in Haddonfield, New Jersey, stumbled upon inspiration for this poem while tidying her room. After rereading a book from American Girl Doll’s Real Stories From My Time book series, The Titanic, she found herself thinking about human’s contrasting reactions to tragedy, as well as what she might do herself if she were on that ship. Eventually, it became this piece, Abigale’s second piece published in Under the Madness Magazine.
"RMS Olympic Broadside View Post-Titanic" by Images of History is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
