Pisces Sinking

| written around Sep 2023 |

A pair of twin goldfish 

Flapping their fins like paper fans 

They venture deeper and deeper into the dark blue 

Skin turning into glass

Tentacles sprouting from their organs

Wrapping their exterior, forced into a sphere

Now they can only tumble, stumble, fumble

As they slowly sink into the uncertain 

And as they sink, they… No, not they,

She. She lost sight of her sister, 

The golden sunlight at the break of dawn,

The bubbles of laughter exploding with glee,

The one holding the headlights of their path,

The blanket fort hiding the stairway to the top bunk,

was no more. 

Young girlhood gone along with her memories 

in a suitcase awaiting a new adventure 

She was surprised by how she could summon the

oceans that the plane flew past 

right onto her cheeks, running down in droplets

The goldfish turned jellyfish sank deeper 

Finding solace in the cold darkness

Because she thought 

as long as she’s making friends with monsters in the dark  

No one would see her deformity 

The half of a breathing heart 

Exposed and raw and where it should not be 

The other half of her,

The good half lost to time 

And the current half, 

the new whole.

Missing a whole lot of the past,

The K51 to school, 

The 36th floor wait up the elevator

The castle kindergarten

My shared bunk beds

My grandparents’ place every Saturday

Watching my shadow slowly take up space,

Made her mark,

And now nothing at all.

My tentacles hug me closer, 

Stinging myself with my own poison,

Signaling the end of my adolescent 

In a foreign land 5962 miles away 

I laid the other half of me to rest.

In the casket a crystal jellyfish

With a heart drawn on wonkily, 

A child’s last best efforts.