Nostalgia: Where there are Girls like Fish.

5/28/08

He catches them in his nets,
The girls that are like fish,
Their smooth bodies that fight back in his hands.
He cannot keep them in bowls, he says,
His voice full of tidal waves.
They belong to the sea.

In his eyes there is sea foam and storms,
His teeth made from polished shells,
The kind you can only find one million feet below sea level,
At the darkest part of the ocean.

Sometimes they jump into his boat,
The girls that are like fish.
Maybe he can make me breath again, they think,
Their tails curling.
i can't give you air, he tells them,
You have to do it alone.

One of the girls had a tangle of seaweed and pearls in her hair,
Scars from fighting back with sharks,
Lips like bright pink hibiscus.
She gave him necklaces covered in shells and bones from animals he would never see,
Peices of ships that had wrecked in storms.
He sang to her from his boat about a sad man who had fallen into the ocean and drowned,
About a girl who became a fish because she loved the ocean too much.

The man with the seafoam storm eyes loved the fish girl with the tangled saltwater hair,
He loved her scars and floral lips and ocean jewelry,
So one day he waited for her and caught her in his net.
i can teach you how to breathe, he told her,
Pulling her into his boat,
But i cannot breathe, she told him,
Her mouth full of waves.

The girl loved the man, but she belonged to the sea.
She loved the way it smelled and felt warmer when she got to the surface,
How there were things there she would see that no one else could.
Then teach me how to drown, he asked the girl.
i can't teach you, she told him.
You have to do it alone.

The man let the girl go,
He knew that he couldn't drown and she couldn't breathe.
She swam away from his songs with her jewels,
Until the man couldn't tell his wake from hers.
Everyday he waited for the girl to come back,
He even tried to call her to him with new songs,
But the girl never came.