Chlorine

by Jade Song

Mermaids would rather eat four bowls of pasta than a man—though a man does taste good, mermaids prefer not to waste precious stomach volume on such non-nutritious fare, for a man is not sustenance but an occasional dessert.

He gave me my first experience in attempting to prove myself to a man, with no avail.

I saw their evolution as a gift, so they could play in the water forever, not beholden to men’s needs or a moralist God’s schedule.

Nearly every human memory is corrupted by the fact that it is a memory of being human.

As a mermaid, I now recognize how winning places the self within a construct of hierarchy over other bodies—a false construct. There’s no victory when someone else loses.

What is it called when immigrants reverse, when they wake up from the nightmare masked as a dream?

He had never managed to pick me up from practice or school on time, yet he was seven hours early for his own departure.

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

I died and regenerated every month. How else could I define the experience? The reasonable explanation was death. I decided when my body was wheeled into the morgue, the coroner would declare I died of being a woman. Which was far better than dying of being a man.

Humans are the downfall to myths. Whether the human razed the home, broke the heart, or betrayed the trust, the mythical is always in a worse state after the introduction.

I guess hearts are slippery because they’re covered in blood. I wish I could bleed mine dry. Then I’d miss you less.

Anyway, let me get back to my yearning:

Who declares what is feminine and what is not? Wasn’t strength a form of femininity? I loved my muscles. If anything, I wanted my limbs to become even more muscular.