Winter Me

Here it is December, and I am flying in the face of my annual fall depression. A breakup, a move, and a zero tolerance for cold (see previous posts about my passionate thoughts on winter) are all keeping me from enjoying the carefree existence that I know that I deserve. I get up, I make coffee, I stress. Then I stress some more. Drink more coffee. Inevitably I'm late to work, which causes more stress. So, I've decided to write something, anything, every day. Writing lifts my mood and keeps me from thinking about, well, me. Because me, especially Winter Me, causes stress. It's a full and unhappy circle that only writing, yoga, and sunshine can cure

So, here we go. Let's start with a poem. About a fish. That I killed. Baby steps, people.

Killing Fish

Why does water seep out of this broken thrift-store tank

As if the Indian sea is behind it?



A crack in the glass.

Water drips like shiny rupees onto the floor.

I am confused by my own ineptness,

or maybe I’m surprised this fish trusted me with its life at all.



The instruction manual said to use fresh water, not salt.

Food, oxygen, twenty gallons of clean water.

A tank, deep and wide enough to house this ocean-bound jewel.



Carpe, carpio, or sapphire carp?

I don’t even know your real name, fish.

What would your Hindu countrymen call you?

Nothing I call you sounds magnificent enough.



You are only a fish, but I speak to you like a lover:

Like the time I asked you 100 important questions about India.

I wanted you to tell me ancient stories only I could hear.



The tank is half empty. Still breathing, fish?

You were built for the faster currents of the Indian Ocean.

Surely your kind has survived greater hardships than this.



OK, listen up, Allah! This is your fish. I am not a believer.

I am not a professor, or a caretaker, or a fisherman among exotic men.

I am just a bystander, who should never have tried to own anything as beautiful as this fish.



What was it that Gandhi said? The body only temporarily houses the spirit?

In life there is no pain, only the illusion of pain?



I will be you then, fish, our next time together on earth.

Come back for me and feed me to the sharks.

It will be a wretched end, but we will both gain enlightenment.



Stop breathing, damn fish! Give it up to the cosmos before I cry.

This is not supposed to hurt, and we will both be better fish for it in the end.