—SHOULD’VE STAYED IN BED

                                               The Shallows

I am sucking on the wide mouth of a pistol dad’s the one no one knows about there are bloated fish belly up everything dead and belly up in the aquarium he loves so much water boxed too tight glass too clean and see-through the steady gurgle of it cartoonish almost comical if weren’t for the pistol and my mouth where it is what I’m doing it’s the shudders I can’t stand the hand-on-the-back-of-the-neck pressure I can’t stand but I’m able to see the tank from this angle the eerie garish glow dead water unspooling through a plastic tube fish bobbing like crumpled tissues a lifetime from this moment and the others that are to come the sound of bubbling water will seek to revert return regress what I’ll have remade of myself when I’m older but I’ll search for the water source watch the waves surge and dash behind outcropped rocks I’ll jump in if I have to even in the shallows I’ll swim I’ll swim faster than any fish swim farther than any monster