Neither Sea Nor Soil by Savannah Smyth

Neither Sea Nor Soil

How many people have
I let slip through my fingers 
like fish through reeds

How many memories must
I untangle from them
Before I’m freed?

Like sunburnt fish,
We flail on dry land,
Disconnected from our creed.

Starving relationships I won’t feed.
Like clever koi or daring dahlias,
People are an exotic breed.

I water dead gardens 
Because it doesn’t take long 
to plant the seed

But I leave things to grow 
Without tending them because 
I can’t understand their needs.

When conversations sprout,
I chop off each budding head
And watch the stems bleed.

When a fin or leaf reaches out,
I turn my back and shiver.
Why befriend a me, a dirty crossbreed?

I shake from tail to petal-tip
At the thought of being known.
It’s self inflicted loneliness, I concede 

I only speak in dreams, as I merge
With brambles that look like me.
So I have decided I belong amidst the weeds.

But even they detest me.
The pungent smell of my scales,
My flapping fins and the signs I misread.


I belong to neither sea or soil,
Only made to be plucked or boiled,
An abominable half-breed.