This place is unfamiliar
dark and churning
with hunters lurking
out of view.
I’m hooked through
the mouth with drink
the gills with smoke
the eye with flashing lights.
My fight is dulled:
the current pulls me down.
The crowd bobs offbeat
as the DJ casts
droning bass
and stinging snares
that reel me in
until I’m caught
with the others
in a polluted haze, waiting for the net
to trawl forward,
to scoop us up
into a floundering dance that baits
and slowly suffocates.
The air doesn’t hydrate enough
so I slug more
but my body doesn’t take
this foreign form of oxygen.
I can’t leave the swarm
can’t weave through flailing bodies
can’t break the net of limbs
that tows me upward.
The sharks are watching me
but it’s the fishermen that
grab my sequin scales
finding imperfections that they created
and deeming me unworthy for the catch.
By some twisted fate, I’m released
but it’s too late:
I sink to the sea bed
watching a shimmering rainbow
spread high above me
then vanish as the lights go dark.
.
Megan Wade
.