About Fishes

In an effort to prove a point, I am writing this without any metaphors

Because I told a man that I could be honest

So I’m being honest.

This is about fishes

And the time I never told you about

When I got my first tattoo for free

Because my morals only extend to where free shit begins

And look, I swear this isn’t a euphemism

I took a bite out of his meat and have a permanent reminder

Behind my left ear.

I don't eat animals, I say

And in order for anyone to believe me, some stories must go untold

But I'm being honest, you see.

Not even salmon, you see.

Fishes are animals too, you see.

I don't know lefts and rights.

Meanwhile, the girl who loves hip-hop

Spits slam and verse under her breath

And goes fishing with bearded Bon Iver men

You see, she catches them with hooks and rhythm

And finds their soul in their smoky guitars

But it’s never the soul she’s looking for

So she falls asleep in knitted socks

Wondering if this is what a jungle feels like.

The bearded Bon Iver man

He has caught a fish for dinner

He slits open its belly

And all the memories of an ocean

That was never really an ocean

All come spilling out

He guides the knife with scarred hands

And collects the remains

Last night, he did this and all her words did the same

Pulled them out of her lungs

And after stripping back the skin

Gathered all of the mess

Wrapped it in newspaper

And took it out to the bins

They breed fish in farms these days

Ocean fresh

Feel the salt in your lungs

How many of us are content with captivity

As long as the consolation of whiskey and cigarettes and peanut butter and chips

Hot chips

God, I love chips

They keep us stable

What an easy conquest

So in an effort to be honest,

I am using metaphors

I have rivers for veins

The fish swim in my blood

I breathe salt and spit phrases over phat beats

And rap under my breath

And each night, the fisherman slits open my belly

Peels back my skin

Scoops out my words

And paper-wrapped, takes them out to the bin

This is as close I get to freedom

Gardens and Weightlessness

Cooper Street

Maybe it's just the streetlights

Hanging low in the sky

And this night is not nearly as magical as it seems

Maybe it's just the moon shining threats of time over the horizon

Promising to cut us in two

But in this moment

As the light from the cars spin round to face us,

Pulling us off the street and into the walls

And my fingers into yours

I find that I am in love

With the way

That your hair

Sticks around your ears

And your bony thumbs

I told you that I am a monsoon

That I fall apart at the seams

That I forget to eat

And cry at the thought of mountains.

I have a war underneath my skin

And a battle in my hands.

I am not as strong as I look.

But I’ll spit words into your face

Double dareing you

Bending your arms until you cry Uncle.

I want you to dissolve.

Like ice cubes on summer pavements

That summer we never wore shoes

And I stuck in your feet like glass

You would never be able to get out.

In defence of the mistakes I will make,

The piano teeth I will crack and your left incisor that will chip

In a year and six months

I folded today into a crane

Hiding in the corners all the apologies I will ever have to give

The crane is bigger than the earth

And the times that I have wronged you

Countless.

Three streets down, there is a man who cried at tigers.

From the age of four, he searched for the paths

That they traced through the mountains of Bhutan

He spent his whole life waiting

“The mountain’s will keep their secrets”, he said

“The tigers need their space”

But at 13,000 ft. and three months before the ground took him

They opened like a lotus, 

Curling around the striped tails of creatures that science says shouldn’t be there.

Science.

At the quay, there are bacteria in the water that cause it to glow green

You swear you have never seen anything so beautiful.

I tell you that there are species of coral that when you cut them in two, each part reflects each other perfectly.

Radial symmetry.

I bent you in half and I promised 

That I wouldn’t fall in love with you

And I meant it