Chlorine

by Jade Song

You are not here of your own free will. You are here because I desired you first.

You think mermaids desire either to copulate with two-legged male sailors or lure them to their watery deaths—always or, never and.

I dreamt myths larger than my girl body could hold.

Euphoria was the feeling of ascension, a path I recognized when I later shed my human self for mermaid. Euphoria was reaching the edge of fatigue, near fainting, until adrenaline slapped you awake. Euphoria was muscles on fire. Euphoria was to slap the wall first, fist pumping the water, then to bask in the crowd’s uproar, hollering your name. Euphoria was to dip your head in an act of humbleness for the gold medal to be placed around your neck.

On the day of my first period, I was more dead doe than human woman. Was womanhood always so violent, raw?

I guess hearts are slippery because they’re covered in blood. I wish I could bleed mine dry.

And when this happened, I, like many other humans, did not allow myself the time and resources to fully rest, heal, recover.

no matter how hard I try to break out of the star-spangled brainwashing I was subject to from a young girl’s age.

The home was a hard place to love, perhaps because it was the home, and you therefore expected so much more from it, and felt its failures more acutely.

How was I supposed to differentiate between the pain due to the concussion and the pain due to the agony of everyday human life?

Becoming a mermaid hasn’t stopped my hunger. Luckily, down here, in the water, there are many lovely creatures with whom to share sustenance; if need be, many humans we trick into providing for our devouring.

Eventually I learned the consequences of careless human hunger.

Humans and monsters both understand stories about magic and marvel and myth are made interesting by their stemming from trauma and violence and blood. How can one grow without pain?

Her loneliness was the catalyst for her mythology.