Aunt Marceline dreams of fish. Which means, the man with the green eyes who liked my shoes and my hips who left a piece of himself inside of me. For months, I do not shower. I moon in the bathtub, the hot prickly water running high past my knees. I sit there. I breathe air. I sink in and breathe water. I hope the little fish inside me grows fins. I hope it swims out of me and into the tub. I hope the little fish inside me goes down down down the drain. Finds a beautiful ocean, in place of my body.


Instead, the little fish inside me grows nine months and is born with small lips and little fins.


Aunt Marceline says green eyes are bad luck. An omen like two egg yolks in one shell. Last time that happened, she went outside for the mail and witnessed her neighbor run down by a Chevy Supersport. I look at him and see that night as clear as sitcoms playing across the TV. My pink silk shoes, heels so high. That feeling of an eye-level sky. I’m walking on clouds. I drink. To be a fish. In it all again. I meet people and dance them to tomorrow. Warm lights, a smile, our bodies. I meet green eyes and dance him to cheap motel, closed eyelids so tight the grainy reds behind them burst and ripple to nothing. A silence.


The little fish who was inside me grows and grows and one day asks why me and Aunt Marceline aren’t fish too. I ‘shhh’ him. When he is hungry or sad, I tap flakes into the water above his head. I give him a bit less than he needs. I try to keep him little. Aunt Marceline asks what happens next? What happens when the fish bowl is too small? I watch the little fish growing outside me, and hope for now it is enough.

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