6.

I dream of jumping in the ocean and never coming back. I’d take the things that matter most, in a little water-proof bag. I’d swim until I couldn’t see land in any direction, and then I’d keep going.

I dream of a Venn-diagram of sound;
under the current, bubbles of air whisper watery secrets that no one else can hear.
And in the sunshine, my legs hanging low and my head bobbing, gulls cry and the waves keep rhythm like music on the radio when everyone is asleep.

I dream of swimming until I die from exhaustion, malnutrition, drowning.
Being eaten alive by a shark.

I dream I see his dorsal fin and my waterlogged brain pauses, never having seen a fin cutting through currents, never having seen a fin at all. He relishes my bad timing, bites me before I can feel pain. By the time my breaths are numbered, I'm drowning, anyway. It’s a fearsome thing, being eaten by a fin.

I dream he takes my belly in his many teeth and shakes me in a lunch-time frenzy. He swallows most of my intestines and moves down to my thighs. I feel my brain concuss, and I watch the sun wink at me from beneath the waves. I think, I always liked that sun. What a pity we were never that close.

I’m sinking to the bottom of the ocean. The shark and his shark mates ripped out my heart and left me bleeding my way into the darkening depths. I bounce off of other fish; get tangled in some seaweed halfway down. I whisper for it to let me go, let me go, let me go.

I am freed, I continue my descent, still staring at the fading spotlight of the sun, amorphous and wobbly due to the sea-salt in my eyes. Fish come and settle inside me, picking at my organs. An aggressive cutthroat eel pulls at my pancreas, and I’m sinking with less speed. After a swordfish swims away with my left kidney I’m hardly sinking at all. I’m floating slightly to the right, not moving up or down. I let go of my bag of important things.

And once it hits the bottom it will never move again.