Fishtank : 3

420      ᗞ      2025

“Here comes a lost soul!” a man shouts at me as I walk home from work. 

“Sup” I say.

“Keep your head up.” He says and goes back to his conversation with the other man standing at the street corner.

I don’t usually think of myself as a lost soul. I think it’s a lost world. I think if the world was right, there would be nothing wrong with any of us. 

I drew “The World” card in the tarot this morning. I’ve been reacquainting myself with the deck. I’ve been drawing one each day from the Major Arcana.

And I ask… 

Are we all not the world? 

Is the pain of your neighbor truly not your pain?

When they break the legs and arms of a woman, and throw her in a river to drown,

when they record her drowning, and post it to Facebook,

when they push away those who try to help her,

when she spends a day dying in the hospital from a punctured lung and hypothermia,

and then her heart stops in the arms of her mother,

is that not your pain?

And what of those who kill?

Those who think themselves righteous, 

and so they point their fingers,

calling others sinners,

is it not you who point, too?

And is sin not simply missing the mark?

And haven’t we all done that?

In a world of headless monkeys,

it’s those who have heads who are the strange ones,

and it’s those who have heads who are chased with saws.

“Let us cut off your head,” they’ll say, “It won’t hurt at all.”

Last night, after seeing Labyrinth

and the redemption of goblin Judas, who served the only king he knew,

who had no shame for his sin, and so he had no guilt, and so he did not kill himself in the end.

After the show, after I kissed your head goodnight,

I dreamed we had an abortion. 

A child that arrived by accident.

I didn’t have the money, and you prayed and knew it wasn’t time.

And we prayed again, and we fasted.

And then one day more, we prayed. 

And then I took you to the clinic, and held your hand in the lobby.

Ran my fingers along your head, whispered, “see you on the other side.”

At church on this Easter morning, I wonder how many of these white shirts would point fingers at the woman thrown in the river simply because she was born a boy? 

And how many would point, too, at the killers, and not see that they were but the most violent extension of that same finger?

And how many would point to you?

Because of the abortion you had.

Without even the thought of who sowed the seed.

That is a conversation we are hundreds of years away from.

But I’ll speak of it.

Because I am not afraid anymore.

Were you ever taught to keep yourself at half mast?

Were you ever told to use your breath to steady and maintain yourself?

And I am speaking to the men now. To those who have a penis.

Were you ever told that your seed was the most valuable thing you possess,

that it should be handled with wisdom, with control, and with great care?

Were you raised to please yourself, or to put aside pleasure for what needs to be done?