Free Write 3/20/11

Breathing

Below sea level I hurry. The salt infects my nose, eyes, taste. My lips emblazoned with crystals, my body adorned in scales. Tendrils of light cadence through my hair. My lower body arches and curves with the current, propelling me along. Stirred sand blurs my vision; I quickly maneuver through, longing to catch one last glimpse. We didn’t have long, yet that’s what propelled us to fall in love. He didn’t mean to come here; didn’t intend to be one of us. It happened when he saw me. We don’t know why. Maybe that’s what Triton does when two people are meant to be. Maybe it was because of the green anchor tattooed on his forearm. Either way, his two legs morphed into one. His short hair grew to shoulder length golden curls. I taught him how to breathe, how to swim in the currents, how to enjoy the grottos. And we lost it. I grit my pointed teeth as I hurry. He is on a ship now. Curiosity. Earlier, he bobbed his head to the surface and when he did, his legs grew back. Triton changed his mind today. His merman made a mistake. We found him. We saw the ship rescue him, pull him aboard. With his human lips he yelled my name in our language. Despite my people urging me not to, I swam to the surface and prayed to the ocean to make my fin be two. When it didn’t, my salt tears mixed with the ocean. He cried my name I again. I wanted him to see that I was there, but he didn’t. I said nothing, and that’s what I regret now. I imagined his lips of fleshed wedding mine of diamonds. How they would now feel soft and tender on my body opposed to the rough rock that I knew before.

The ship is sinking. Triton is mad. He feels that he was deceived; his new merman wasn’t content enough. He never should have ventured above the surface. Now we are paying. There will be no way for him to return to me. We all can feel the vibration of the sinking ship. There is fire, we taste the ash as it mingles in our air. I keep going, throw my pearl adorned wrist back and move faster. It is too late when I reached the scene. I look for him everywhere and pieces from the ship sink lower, searching for a final place to rest. I see his arm, I see the anchor, and his body turned back to merman—what he really was. This time it’s different. The light from his hair is gone, his face is placid. He’s gone. I breath in the debris, smoke, and blood.

Don’t say his name, then he isn’t real. Don’t say love, because it wasn’t. The deepest are what words can’t illuminate.