I cannot leave a pet store without a visit to the fishes. The unnatural lights, the pink and blue gravel, the sound of the water pumps purring in the background.
I love the tanks full of black mollies, like burnt bits of coal, like a dream I almost remember, like the bed sheets after I leave the room.
The Siamese fighting fish, fans of fins, the rush of anger, swirl of disdain, the shimmer that says, “I will never love you.”
The catfish, the Humphrey Bogarts of the fish world, drag their long whiskers across the the fake castle, and tell the other fish not to look back, have no regrets, and when they turn to the goldfish and say, “Play it again,” the goldfish just keeps swimming.
The bulging-eyed goldfish, the ones we watch to see what happens to their eyes, sure they cannot live much longer that way. Near sighted fortune tellers, if they could only speak. You’ve wasted the last third of your life. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Your heart spoke to me when you walked in the door. Your past followed you in, crying behind you.
Save yourself they say. There are fish you have never imagined swimming in seas you’ll never visit. But that doesn’t mean your life is empty. We are here. Take us home. Listen to us sing as we push against the water. Our world weighs more than you can bear.
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