Flounder

what I feel now

isn’t this moment’s feeling

but the echo of a sealed life,

a memory

seared into me:

a baby begging

on her knees,

screaming for her mom not to

leave,

her dad hauling

her body out the door—

me, a half-alive flounder

flopping,

mouth hooked by the fisher-brute,

shin-stoppers scraping

the floor

then you looked

at me

with those well-deep eyes,

and the floorboards splintered—

you were the catalyst,

erupting all the feelings I’d buried,

dormant heat rising

until I boiled & flayed

to hide

you, poison & medicine,

anathema & anaesthetic—

feeding the starved creatures

inside my belly

until they exploded,

splattered,

entangled with your monsters,

fused into the mess

we are now:

two flounders

stranded on sand,

gasping,

mistaking breath for love