Shadows Cast Under Noses, In Sullen Cheeks And Eye Sockets Galore.

Maybe I am not good enough for most things, and I am meant only to look at all I want and yearn so deeply that my body begins to die.

Living in an anxious mind, I know fear intimately, I know nervousness like a favorite cousin-always sitting by me at dinner, insisting we stay in to watch movies instead of go out for dessert because when we go out I don’t enjoy myself at all. Too worried about the drive home, where I’ll park, all the trivial details that make it so I can’t taste the ice cream anyways. And don’t mistake me, I favor my fear just as much as it favors me. It keeps me comfortable, and how I love to be comfortable, though it’s a shaking uneasy kind of comfort. The sort a doomed man has on death row.

I feel pressure to act not as a person, but as woman. To fill every void left by our absence, too little leaders of us, too little comedians of us, too little scientists of us; am I meant to choose what loss to make up for with just my one life?

A mermaid is born when a heart is buried, deep in the trenches of the blue sea. A mermaid coveting motherhood need only snatch a sailor’s heart and offer it to the seabed, and within hours, her baby girl will rise from the sand and into her arms. What happens, though, when a mermaid steals the heart of another mermaid? How will the others forgive a murder, even if it is done out of love?

-Diary of a Siren

Fairies are a gentle sort, no bigger than pointer fingers. A little fire sprite burned the tip of mine once. She wasn’t sorry about it neither, she just snickered and gave me a thimble to wear over its ugly little boil. I sort of admired that unapologetic way she had about her. Her nature wasn’t wrong after all, she didn’t burn me out of hatred or malice. She burned because she was fire.

More hours in the day ought to do it. Just four or five more, and my dreams don’t seem so far away.

Polymaths are rarer than single subject experts; lofty does not begin to describe my future. But who ever aimed low and went high? Better to do the opposite I say, and maybe I’ll warm up to medium.

Algae bloomed on the face of the lake at summer’s height, like zits in bundles of thick and slimy green. The siren that dwelt deep in the lake’s toes could not bear the warm swampiness, it drove her mad. Not only that, but her sailor girl, her shining beacon of hope for food had wounded her in her escape. She felt rotten, her gash festered in hot white patches. No food, no beauty, no cold deep blue lake water to retreat to. All that was left for her was a walk. To find the sailor girl and give her what was coming to her.

These teeth of mine, that I press my tongue against, will outlast my soul. I taste death, how when I die, my crooked jaw will linger here on this earth without me. It haunts me to smile and see a glimpse of what will remain.

I’m trying to hold onto myself.

Rushing water.

I can’t remember what I came out here for.

Rain coming down.

I wonder if my mascara is running.

Wind pushing.

But I can’t bother to wipe my face if it is.

If I must abandon myself to earn their smiles, what are they worth to me anymore.