fish-mouth
My mouth is full of large, squirming fish, eyes searching
My voice reverberates and cuts between their fishscales
Gasping, gagging, a swallowing stream
The anxiety builds as I try to speak, as I try not to choke, which only serves to further agitate the piscine between my teeth and my throat
Conditioned to accept the fallacy that the fish can only survive in a basin of water while the lake remains so far away
Sometimes I tell others about the fish, but my live experience and theirs couldn't be further apart
Wanting to be part of conversations but spitting gills with each phrase
Harming others with each croaked rhyme
I try not to colour my impressions by these conversations; my mouth is full of fish, after all
My stories are long, hard of breath, and deaf to those listening.
The fish are an uncomfortable percept, that discomfort is to be expected in my company.
Fish must breathe too; they occupy the air I breathe and the brainstem receives what's left.
Sometimes I speak to the fish, but the only words I hear are my own reflected back
One day I met my wife. She was a fisher. She could hook their cheeks so casually and in the night we'd have supper.
These days were filled with joy, and she understood me for who I was, as not only was my mouth occupied,
but she was also familiar and compassionate about my condition.
Sometimes new fish would swim back up from my lungs, but with her help we turned this curse into a boon.
Naturally, she means the world to me and I could scarcely live without her.
But even in this brief absence, I find myself afflicted again.
A fisher must be with the sea, of course. The fish are keeping me up at night, my gag reflex is on edge.
I'm not sleeping quite as comfortably, would you?
I don't know how much of this is brought upon myself for stoking the ire of the hexer;
sometimes one's errors lack equivalency to the punishment due. The burden is mine to accept and carry.
I must be by the ocean, and I must also cure myself of this affliction.
For not all of my friends are fishers and they shouldn't need to ply trade to know me the way I wish to be known.
I want to become the fisher. Let me discover balance in my catch and keep.
Leave the mongering to the mongers and keep my lips sealed, the airways clear.
Let me feel a careless ocean breeze and breathe its whisps freely,
When my mouth is no longer full of fish.
