"aquarium" poems
love
its a beautiful thing really,
its brutal, its strong
it so deep, and so heartwarming,
and at the same time,
it makes me want to cry, scream
pound my bed,
punch the white cement wall until my knuckles are ****** raw
and the wall has a display of reds.
it makes me want to break an elegant expensive vase, and crush it in my hand.
its destructive, desired, dangerous,
and yet
i want to laugh
i want to sing
and dance!
dance to oh what a night
dance with my yellow watercolored pillow case, with my favorite pillow stuffed inside
oh, love is so peculiar isn’t it?
its spectacular,
and its like standing in the middle of a ballroom
where dresses and suit ties of different hues reflect the chandelier light hanging from the ceiling,
an array of rainbows cast on the walls.
and yet, theres an emptiness…
one I’m afraid i cannot fill, and rely on you to.
its like standing in an ocean of chaos, of excitement and watching it from afar at the same time.
i can see myself swimming with the sharks, yet i am a bystander
as the thread of my life is strung tautly,
i watch myself bleed, gruesomely torn to pieces
i watch as the water darkens from spilt wine,
the wine that was once salty becomes sickly sweet around me
but i continue watching myself become bones stuck in their teeth.
its like being in an aquarium, encased in water,
and yet, still not a part of it, a distance, yet, a proximity
i watch myself drown through the looking glass, unable to help.
the sign says don’t tap the glass, but i pound and pound.
I am the only one watching myself slowly slow, and slowly stop.
stop breathing, stop fighting.
love is holding your breath, being cautious, yet careless.
Its diving recklessly, unsure whether to be sober, or drunk,
and being both.
its like seeing myself on a high diving board, the water beneath is so deep,
it seems to never start, and never end at the same time.
I can see myself, on the edge peering over,
scared to take a leap of faith,
yet relived i can still feel the sharp breaths,
nervous stomach,
because it means i can still feel, i am still capable of human emotions
i thought had left me long ago, before you.
Mar 18, 2018
Mar 18, 2018 at 9:07 PM UTC
i. the curly, green-haired
leo with the cry-baby tattoo
on her left calf; fish net stockings and
loud guitar playing and
menthol cigarettes. driving through
the park at 9 pm, ***** shots,
the white house with the a-frame roof,
hugs that made your heart feel as warm
as she did
crying as i left my room again to be
intertwined with a girl who did not love me, but i wanted to;
months pass, lonely car rides with
one-sided conversations and
seven years gone,
quiet disconnection
that made you feel as cold
as i did
ii. brown eyes, brown skin,
round glasses and chicago streetlights.
holding each other close on the subway
lakehouse parties in the beginning of spring and
pisces season and tarot readings and
soft kisses on the train.
holding hands at the aquarium,
sweet poetry and calm and
a sense of oneness that made you feel
important
hurt for the third time
a panic, a loss
i held their heart in my hands and
let it fall
harsh
unimportant
i still carry the guilt on my fingertips
iii. short hair. freckled cheeks, i
fell in love with the way the skin
crinkled around her eyes when she smiled.
an apartment, a home built
around our lips touching
wrapped in blankets on the couch,
dense smoke and her hand on my leg while she
drove. chinese food and
waking up against her chest and
laughing so hard
my ribs hurt
crashing. her anger withering away my
heartstrings; pain and
crying alone in the bathtub
moving away
drunk tears on the interstate
punching my thighs
in place of the way her
words made
me hurt
Feb 6, 2018
Feb 6, 2018 at 11:27 AM UTC
Everyone in me is a bird.
I am beating all my wings.
They wanted to cut you out
but they will not.
They said you were immeasurably empty
but you are not.
They said you were sick unto dying
but they were wrong.
You are singing like a school girl.
You are not torn.
Sweet weight,
in celebration of the woman I am
and of the central creature and its delight
I sing for you. I dare to live.
Hello, spirit. Hello, cup.
Fasten, cover. Cover that does contain.
Hello to the soil of the fields.
Welcome, roots.
Each cell has a life.
There is enough here to please a nation.
It is enough that the populace own these goods.
Any person, any commonwealth would say of it,
"It is good this year that we may plant again
and think forward to a harvest.
Many women are singing together of this:
one is in a shoe factory cursing the machine,
one is at the aquarium tending a seal,
one is dull at the wheel of her Ford,
one is at the toll gate collecting,
one is tying the cord of a calf in Arizona,
one is straddling a cello in Russia,
one is shifting pots on the stove in Egypt,
one is painting her bedroom walls moon color,
one is dying but remembering a breakfast,
one is stretching on her mat in Thailand,
one is wiping the *** of her child,
one is staring out the window of a train
in the middle of Wyoming and one is
anywhere and some are everywhere and all
seem to be singing, although some can not
sing a note.
Sweet weight,
in celebration of the woman I am
let me carry a ten-foot scarf,
let me drum for the nineteen-year-olds,
let me carry bowls for the offering
(if that is my part).
Let me study the cardiovascular tissue,
let me examine the angular distance of meteors,
let me **** on the stems of flowers
(if that is my part)..
Let me make certain tribal figures
(if that is my part).
For this thing the body needs
let me sing
for the supper,
for the kissing,
for the correct
yes.
9k
Bilang na ang aking maliligayang araw.
dalawa na lang. Kung isasama yung pangakong panlilibre ng lomi
ng mga kasamahan sa pabrika sa unang restday matapos ang endo-
tatlo. At ganito pala ang feeling ng may taning.
Para kang nasa nilulumot na aquarium na walang oxygen
at goldfish kang kasama ng dalawang golden arowana.
Hindi ka makahinga.
Sa a kinse, matuloy man o hindi ang balitang super-bagyo
Tapos na ang limang buwang kontrata.
Matatapos na rin ba ang hindi naumpisahang pagsinta?
Tulad ng paghahanap ng mga skater sa kanilang skate park,
matatagpuan ko rin ba ang lakas loob at habambuhay na hindi na?
Kaya naman kaninang tanghalian, wala akong kwentong maihain sa iyo.
Parang habambuhay ko ngang uubusin yung inorder kong BBQ
kanin at RC.
Paano ko ba sasabihing baka isa na ito sa huling dalawang tanghalian na sabay tayong kakain?
Paano ko ba sasabihin na sa maraming pagkakataon na sabay tayong kumakain,
nagtitipid ako at hindi naman talaga ako nagugutom.
Gusto lang kita makasama kasi parang gusto na kita.
Pero tulad ng inililihim kong pagtatapos ng aking kontrata
Hindi mo alam.
Hindi mo alam na ikaw ang dahilan kung bakit masarap ang simoy ng hangin sa loob ng pabrika
kahit wala naman talagang bintana at inuubong industrial fan lang ang meron tayo.
Hindi mo alam kung anong kapanatagang nararamdaman ko
tuwing sinasabihan mo akong mag-iingat ako
tuwing uwian kahit ang totoo, hindi natin kakilala ang kaligtasan
at kapanatagan sa pabrikang walang fire exit
at benefits.
Yun talaga yun, hindi mo alam.
Pero alam mo naman sigurong salot talaga ang kontraktwalisasyon?
At maramot talaga sa mga lovestory nating mga below-minimum-wage-earners
at contractual workers ang sistema ng paggawa sa Pilipinas.
Sa mga susunod na bukas, ikaw naman ang mag-e-endo.
Baka mapunta ka sa Savemore na tadtad din ng kontraktwal.
At masnatch ang numero mo at hindi na kita matatawagan.
At ako, baka sa hirap humanap ng trabaho maisangla ko ang aking telepono.
At isang monumentong singlaki ng Mall of Asia ang itatayo sa pagitan nating dalawa.
Kasalanan ito ni Ernesto Hererra.
Aug 2, 2015
Aug 2, 2015 at 12:53 PM UTC
People stare, but no one cares.
They look for a second or two,
then go.
faces pressed against the glass,
as they watch my tail flow.
I am trapped in a prison,
where bubbles have risen.
I'm constantly being watched.
Its been so long,
A millenium!
Where I've been stuck inside this aquarium.
Oct 9, 2014
Oct 9, 2014 at 3:47 PM UTC
I'm swimming in a stream of consciousness
rare is the occasion I get to rest
I'm swimming
sometimes drowning
inside my head
I need rescue
help me please I beg
I was running wild with the wind once
against the current I flew
through the glass window I came suddenly
and fell into this room
I'm a fish not that big
not a whale or a shark
more like a salmon in the dark
at the bottom of the ocean
where I'm not supposed to be
I'm out of breath.
I'm a fish in your aquarium
the one you never get tired of looking at
you watch me do the same thing all day
how I get bored and lonely inside my rock
you watch me grow until I stop
I can't learn anything new
so I hide and play by myself
Once you dropped me on the floor
desperately grabbed me and took me home
I slept like it was my last day on earth
'cause you never know what's going on in the universe's mind
I thought I should've died before
but when you're being killed the instinct is to fight
I wouldn't mind stop breathing though
I wouldn't mind not having feelings
Fishes have feelings too
I'm afraid of the dark too
Here in your aquarium I get to see the most wonderful things!
how your cat almost swallows me
how your fingers get nervous when you're excited
and I can see everything
'cause no one sees me
Maybe you should take my eyes
'cause I can see through yours.
Feb 3, 2018
Feb 3, 2018 at 5:23 PM UTC
As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.
One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.
A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch
A white face hovered over the bottom.
Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.
Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.
4.7k
The sky is white
and flat
It’s like we are all living in an aquarium and they forgot
to turn the lights on
to turn the sky on
Our knowledge of how to breathe is slipping away
like the cloud that tripped and smeared they sky with buckets full
of one single shade of white
Waiting under the white sky
we stand wondering,
our breaths caught in our throats,
if they will turn on the sky
and let us remember
how to convert oxygen
into the carbon dioxide that is slowly destroying it
and us
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 5:19 PM UTC
When they get to the aquarium, the kid asks if they have a Great White shark exhibit.
The volunteer says no, we don’t.
The kid asks, “Why? are you afraid he might try to eat people?”
The volunteer chuckles at this and tells him no. no aquarium has successfully held a Great White shark live for more than a few days.
You see, in order to stay alive, Great Whites and other sharks, like hammerheads, swim on their own continuously through the ocean, never stopping, never slowing, tramping a perpetual journey with many miles to go before they finally reach “sleep”. If they stop, the oxygen rich water around them no longer flows over their gills and into their bodies and they suffocate from the strain of being at rest. So they keep going, like lost children searching for their parents in a very large amusement park.
This need to keep moving, this need for space, has made it extremely difficult to keep them in our meager glass human death cages. When the Monterey bay aquarium managed to capture a juvenile that didn’t thrash itself to death like the adult sharks they netted before, it bashed its head against the tank’s sturdy walls until the shock of being dragged out of its home and put in the equivalent of a coffin killed it.
But, the volunteer continued cheerfully, we have other kinds of sharks here. We have zebra sharks, which don’t need to swim nonstop. In their natural habitat, they just lie on the ocean floor all day. The kid agrees to go see them
The zebra sharks are not lying on the floor nor do they look like zebras. They swim slowly past him, leopard spots dotting their ridges on their backs, their fins, their long tails. “They’re called zebra sharks because of the zebra like patterns of the juveniles,” the volunteer explains. The ones we have here are adults.When they become adults, they get the spots and those ridges you see. Sometimes people mistake them for leopard sharks, which are a totally different species.”
The kid stares at the zebra sharks for a full ten minutes, looking for a sign of resignation at being called something they weren’t anymore, at collectively being referred to by a childhood nickname they had long outgrown. They did not seem to care.
He gets bored and goes to other exhibits, the split fin flashlight fish blinking on and off in their darkened tank, the touch pool, the medusa jellyfish with their trailing tentacles. But the sharks are what he remembers when he leaves, and they’re what he remember when he returns three months later, six months later, two years later, three, five, ten, this is what stays with him, the sharks in our tanks and the sharks in the ocean.
Jun 16, 2017
Jun 16, 2017 at 2:20 AM UTC
In his glass world
he seems to float
embryonic smooth and white,
not pure white but rather yellowish
watched by thousands of eyes
far from his ilk,
alligators in green, out there,
innocent, harmless
it seems as if they, in the evening
after the last visitors have left,
pull the valve out of his back
and let the air and life leave him
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 10:47 AM UTC
Someone
Anyone
Anybody
Please
Right now, all I need
is to go home
to where the Jellyfish sing to me.
So please, someone
take me to the aquarium.
May 5, 2016
May 5, 2016 at 8:44 PM UTC
The world is an aquarium
We all have a tank
With a paragraph of information about us next to our tank
When people see you they notice your looks and move on
If you are a tall skinny blond boy with blue eyes the girls will stop and get to know you
If you are a shorter boy with brown hair who has acne and is wider people might just move onto the next exhibit
The people in the tanks can't tell what they people on the outside are saying
But they don't care
They are all unique and they know that
People will always judge but they are not the ones you should try and impress
You are the only one who can truly judge you
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 7:46 PM UTC
The lizard slinks across the
Warm, smooth stone.
Light footsteps pitter-patter
Through the sand, barely leaving footprints
It curls up in the lamp provided light
Pressed against slightly heated glass
The ornaments scattered in
The clear aquarium
Don’t keep the lizard entertained for long
The lizard is like a Joshua tree.
It tries to grow to a height
That has not yet been seen
Its environment tries to slow it down
It grows with persistence, and moves a bit faster.
The lizard will soon shed its skin,
It anxiously waits for a new chance.
For a roomier layer in which to live.
The days stretch on;
But it won’t be long
Til’ the lizard is in a bigger place.
May 27, 2013
May 27, 2013 at 9:42 PM UTC
I have locked myself inside of my car in the middle of the school parking lot.
I can still hear the ringing of the bell that caused us to scatter out of the school like ants escaping from a disrupted colony ringing in my ears. I am no longer a fire ant, but a caged animal, and I’m not sure who the metal barrier around me is supposed to be protecting. I still don’t feel safe.
I am thinking about how the glass at the zoos muffles the sounds of the animals, and how you might miss their cries unless you stopped walking and got right next to the glass. I don’t want to be seen, but, at the same time, I am hoping and waiting for people to stop walking past me, stand next to my car, and listen.
I am laying down in my back seat like a wounded animal, and my screams are being muffled by me burying my face into the seat. I no longer feel like a caged animal, but a fish inside of a tank. I don’t know how long I have been crying, but I feel like I am drowning. You can’t hear noises in the water unless you are below the surface yourself. I feel like I am the exhibit in the aquarium that everyone ignores because whatever’s in the water is hiding under a rock.
My head feels as though it will explode, I can’t breathe, everything is blurry, my chest hurts, I can’t stop crying, and I have convinced myself that I am dying. When my cousin was three, he would have died if my dad had not performed cpr on his blue, limp little body after he was pulled out of the pool. Now, he is eleven, and he knows how to swim, but I don’t have the heart to tell him that you don’t need water to drown.
Now, I am wishing that I had been the one that drowned that day.
I am sitting in a fish tank, I have no gills and I can not breathe.
My screams are silent, nobody can hear me, and I am kicking the inside of the car to try and make some noise, but everyone has gone home by now.
I am able to breathe again and I have grown a pair of lungs.
I am sitting in a zoo after closing hours, and all I can do is practice my roar and try to be heard again in the morning.
Jul 29, 2018
Jul 29, 2018 at 8:04 PM UTC
Running and laughing
As if
A fearless schoolgirl
Climbing through my mind
A playground for her games
My heart
Wet leaves below her feet
The veins bleed crimson into muddy puddles
As my feelings bubble to the surface
Unnoticed by the towering eyes above
The bell rings and she leaves me again
Nothing but lonely echoes of laughter
Shadowed smiles hidden behind a darkened stage
Waiting for the curtains to rise once more
One more show
As the actors take their places
The bell bites into awaiting eardrums
Feet pound and patter the ground
Jump ropes and monkey bars
Bouncing ***** and frisbees scraping gravel
Laughter fills my head like an aquarium
Tiny fish swim by oblivious
Completely unaware of my sponge-like brain
Retaining water
Slowly quieting
Drowning inside the water-filled glass cage
At last
Thoughtless
Bubbles rise from deep below
As my heart pumps air and blood to my lifeless brain
All the while she climbs
And laughs
Playing so innocently
Yet intently
Absolutely ignorant to her power
Not realizing as she stares across the chess board
That her opponent’s brain has stopped
And he is now playing with his heart
Now easy prey
Young, injured, or old
Take your pick
He is the scent of blood to a hungry shark
In her child-like mind she continues to play
Still not sure as to the extent of the challenge
A blaring bell sounds off in the distance
One more day’s reprieve
The footsteps and the laughter subside
The curtains fall together
The stage again grows dark
The aquarium is quiet
My heart beats double time
Waiting until tomorrow
Waiting for her hands to begin the climb
Staring at my pieces on the board
Knowing I’m in check
Just waiting for
The mate
Oct 14, 2011
Oct 14, 2011 at 3:47 PM UTC
That tapestry,
Red, Black, Gold
A Celtic Circle--
silently bearing witness
to the proceedings
of that smoky room:
The aquariums--one with
the large eel who seemed
to barely fit the tank
that took up half the wall;
and the smaller, vibrantly
colored fish in the
aquarium with the eggshell
colored coral.
The remixed music played
at a comfortable volume,
by the DJ we knew
so well, together;
as many times
it hardly seemed like
he was working at all,
as he just sat down and
talked to us, for hours.
Looking through
those over-sized books of
old advertisements,
and explanations of
historical artwork;
discussing the contents
with strangers,
who became friends
in the process.
Smoke billowed, enveloping
the atmosphere and filling it
with the smell of many spice
racks, pleasantly rolled in a
shell of a soft breeze
flowing from the oscillating fan.
The smell of joy,
of a relaxed sense of mutual
understanding; that it was okay
not to say a word, because the
atmosphere did the talking
for us.
We just enjoyed sitting
on those red pleather couches
that your **** sank back into,
not allowing my feet to touch
the floor; so they often just
dangled, legs swinging
to the tempo of the music.
As I took a hit
of the hookah,
I manipulated the smoke
into O's, puckering
my lips, trying not
to laugh as you
gazed at me in a
shy sense of wonder.
That face always made you
want to kiss me.
Feb 5, 2012
Feb 5, 2012 at 3:38 AM UTC
"There are plenty of fish under the ocean."
Wait. Scratch that.
"There are plenty of fish in the aquarium. Why the aquarium you ask? Because there are prettier fish in there than in the ocean. And not all of them bite."
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015 at 4:06 PM UTC
Sharks swim in circles round stoic sunfish
Ancient eels hide, watch out- they bite
Sea turtles hover near the glass
Wide eyes in the audience
At what to them is mysterious.
Both feel wonder, a sense of danger
Unpredictable natures, could they relate to each other?
Peered in a little longer, leaned in a little closer
Saw in the reflection
Fish out of water.
Separated by land and sea- no matter
The lowest fish in the water
Sees what life has to offer.
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 10:37 PM UTC
the dead re-materialise by the side of the roadside
they are visible as though seen through a spotlight
it is a brutally interrogative light
that magnifies these corpses
makes them resemble the fragments
of suicidal terracotta pots
it magnifies them as symbolic equivalents
of their real image
its beam dazzles broken glass on the pavement
the breakage an impersonation of their cataclysm
causing the edges of seeing to hurt
and hearing to submerge itself
in a turquoise blue aquarium in fear
as speech sounds a primitive retreat
in its atavistic echoes of inveterate distraction
there is a disorder of blood stains on the road
where all emotional impulse is volatilised
causing a wild distillation of programmed anxiety
which in a different vocabulary becomes
a figment of somebody else's imagination
causing a sinister, stuporous, stagnancy of sound
in palpitations, dropped heartbeats, nausea, headaches
and a foul change in bowel function
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 10:11 AM UTC
as i am nearing the edge of our fading sun,
as our world is one big aquarium,
- full of life...
me, surviving the best i can, alone...
i thought i never long for that new life
born between my seeds,
all i knew is that i am okay, alone...
no plan to plant,
just a fading list of the evading daydream...
it's okay - everythings alright,
there's time, still,
even if it never arrive,
it's still alright
for all the right
reasons...
Jan 11, 2024
Jan 11, 2024 at 3:13 AM UTC
from the smallest batch to the largest hatch
these cold fleshed beings are hard to catch
lurking slowly in dark places, but quick to find sight
when the cuisine arrives for their morning bite.
pellets, minerals, early catching worms
between swirling and dancing ferns
these wide finned beauties will show you a trait
making it hard to see them as bait
skittish and scattering from left to right,
to watch them and ponder is my true delight.
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 9:15 AM UTC
I am not your enemy.
I want to give you a colossal domain.
I want to bottle up the seas for you.
I want to paint you a picture with the sun's rays.
I want to pull down the moon with a chain & tie it to your pretty waist.
I am not your enemy.
I would give you a palace if I could,
or a distant farmland if your tender soul required.
I would found for you a university,
so that the world's young lovers could learn your
proper caresses.
I am not your enemy.
I would catch for you, if I could,
the world's brightest birds, the world's fairest fishes.
I would build you a zoo, then, with an aquarium,
so that you could watch at your leisure
the creatures of your creation.
I am not your enemy.
I will build you a mausoleum, so that I can entomb
you somewhere where only I can visit you,
with flowers in my hand,
and a pretty pearl necklace,
and tears hanging from my
rounded chin.
Aug 12, 2014
Aug 12, 2014 at 10:21 PM UTC
"Beauty just is."
I have an 80's wooden plaque with a picture of an ocean somewhere and waves crashing on the rocks, written on the sky in the photo is the quote, "Beauty just is."
I believe it. So should you. Whoever you are.
I could pick apart the picture. But I won't.
Don't look for ugly.
The quote was given credit to anonymous. Deservedly so.
Anyone anywhere at anytime can recognize beauty.
This is not a duty, choose to be dutiful in all things beautiful.
There is lacquer over the picture to protect it. The lacquer makes it shine.
I find that part ironic, protecting the beauty from spills, unkind graffiti,
from any ugly thing that might happen to it.
That might mar the beauty.
It is not an easily recognizable coastline,
not a celebrity coastline
or a model coastline
or a physically outstanding coastline,
no archways of rocks
or large rocks
that have stood the test of time and erosion and wind and well, pollution.
"Beauty just is" so accept your beauty.
I am not talking to your cat or my dog, the aquarium or the stable full of horses, all those animals do not measure life in terms of beauty, only we, humans do. Animals do not judge anything on the basis of beauty, smell maybe, not necessarily good smells but strong smells, even odours.
Only we humans; also decry, put down,
use the word ugly
and write each other
off,
for not being beautiful.
But "beauty just is", beauty just is. Period.
If you are talking about a piece d'art and
you are going to shell out cash, from your stash,
make sure you buy something significantly important to you and beautiful.
As for another human being...
You have not the right or responsibility to say that someone is not beautiful.
I do not think there is
one person with the wisdom,
alive to recognize what makes
each of us beautiful.
Beauty just is, no parts, no assembly required, accept it, accept one another.
I know there are those that already get it.
I don't want them to read this and sweat it.
They don't need to. I want the bully to read this, out loud.
Beauty JUST IS. You might not get it, yet.
Keep rolling it thru your mind, a beautiful surprise awaits you.
Meditate on it.
Meditate on not the author of the quote, he is anonymous, but the Creator of beauty is not.
Be surprised, as this revelation once understood, will change your perspective on life, after all you're beautiful too.
Originally done by © DWE 2011-5-11
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 12:39 AM UTC
I stood upside down on the watery
side of the sea line and looked at the
world I was standing on, the stars
blew out and re-appeared like the people
walking past the cafe bench. The guy
with the newsboy cap, made his
rounds around the city, a white-out inscription
on brick caught his attention:
“You anticipated
this time in another place.”
The daughter of the woman
behind the flower stand
draws chalked fish completed with
succeeding circles to indicate
bubbles, bubbles on the asphalt.
She was right: I had learned
to breathe underwater and as a litmus
test I turned my eyes to the single
tree on the island. It shivered
like seaweed. I went up to the stand
and purchased the ugliest peony,
the one with petals that were
chiseled like frozen waves.
I gave the lady
my last quarter and as I
turned around I saw the face of the guy
with the newsboy cap, only this time it was infinitely larger,
peeking over the horizon like the sun
when it first rises. And then, a hand coming up,
from under, fingers tapping from the other side,
taps reverberating through sky,
as though there was inside and outside
and this whole time I was
in an aquarium.
Sep 15, 2011
Sep 15, 2011 at 8:45 PM UTC