I stare at the curved ceiling of the bus. I’m in my own head again. But the street lamps and the lights of a cities buildings recreate the dappled effect of water.

I’m underwater.

I’m a kid at the aquarium again.

I’m alone, but I am not lonely.

I am not hungry, but I starve, though I do not know what for.

A car drives by, it’s headlights making shapes in my waterworld.

Light through the windows, the skeleton of a deep sea creature only I can see.

It swims above me, fleshed out by my gaze alone, and I can hear it’s call in my gut, deep in my soul in a way only I know.

I am eaten alive by it, though not literally. I can feel it down my chest, in my stomach, my limbs. I have always carried it with me.

I am lonely, but not alone.

I hunger for a life I will never experience, and starve for a life I never had.

I am alone under the water, the dappled light dripping through to me. The creatures are gone now.

I’m in my own head.

I’m on a bus, and I’m almost to my house.

Is this home?

Is home inside of myself, is home that dappled waterscape, is home the song of that creature?

Or is home a house, somewhere I must leave, somewhere I cannot escape to the sea, stuck in fields of hay?

Where am I?

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Pub: 03 Oct 2023 23:51 UTC

Views: 120