I live at the bottom of a lake
I am a fish
There are gills in my ears
‘Cause there are things my blood needs to hear
I have fins in my mouth and they propel me so far
The only way to stop is to bite down real hard
Sometimes I miss the air, even though I’ve never breathed
I drive around the lake bottom in my little moving machine
I call it a Notcar
I try to find my way to the other side
It’s blue out there or maybe grey

I died at the bottom of a lake today
I ran all out of imaginary air
I fell asleep at the wheel of my Notcar
And drove right into a telephone Notpole
My friends all gathered round my little fish-shaped grave and I learned something
They don’t tell you in books or movies,
That Dead speaks a different language than Alive
So I couldn’t understand a word my fishy friends said
It sounded like this:

I’d always hoped my death would have some meaning
Or that at least my life would
But mostly I just tried to understand things
Like all the different rooms in my brain and why underwater never smelled like rain
I loved a few boy fish, had some very fishy affairs
I loved my friends the most, they were such pretty colors
(Dead sees colors differently than Alive, so now they look like this:                                    )
The day I died was special like every other day which is to say
That it was not Notaverage
And I died in a pretty Notspecial way
And because I can’t hear Alivewords, or see Alivecolors
I’ll never be sure if I left any mark

I live at the bottom of a lake
Most days I think that I’m an alien
On Tuesdays I feel pretty human
The lake I live in died
It left behind little shells in the sand at the playground
And pretty rocks with ripples
It left rings on the mountains but not like rings inside trees
These rings mark a countdown to death, rather than a count out from birth

The lake is a ghost
It sings to me in my sleep, but I don’t speak Dead
At least not yet
And furthermore, I don’t speak lake
I speak a language called Notdeadnotlake
And so do all my friends
Sometimes I wonder why the ocean was so thirsty that it called my lake back home
And I wonder if I’m part of Something Bigger too,
Whether Something Bigger is feeling thirsty
I think I might be part of a big strange creature made out of all the things I sometimes feel like:
Lakesludge and matches and sunshine and fish with sharp little teeth
Notgoods and notbads and spiders and bats
Sadhappys and angryfucks
Starsparkles and earthworms and fairywings and dinosaur bones,
It has really big ears and stubby toes
And all it needs is some alien or Tuesdayhuman to feel complete
Or maybe it’s made of lakeghosts and fishghosts
And wants nothing to do with me