I make these internal deals.

Don’t cry now. Cry in the shower. Later. Today, my belief rocked, I refuse the deal.

Something springs to mind: a t-shirt printed with “I almost stopped believing today… Journey is gonna be so pissed”. Stupid. I laugh through tears.

At a railroad crossing, a train approaches. I pause on the tracks.

If I don’t move soon, the engineer will need to make decisions. I’m sure there’s a “sad idiot on the tracks” protocol.

I accelerate and continue on my way.

“… she took the midnight train going anywhere”

Lyrics now stuck in my head.

I hear a man whistle behind me, setting my eye roll into motion. This is not what I had intended to do today. My plans involved sitting on a rock while the waves crashed behind me, inhaling the soft salt air so my voice could fill its space. But still, I would never pass up an opportunity like this.

I turn around, my long hair following behind me as it floats on the white sea foam, and I see the ship. The scene is extremely predictable. A group of men with long, straggly hair and untrimmed beards are dancing around to some song about the sea. It’s ironic; these old folk songs are pretty much always warning them about the dangers in the ocean, yet they choose to ignore these messages.

“Come on, girl! Give us a smile!” one of them says. I wait a second to let their excitement build before showing them my pearly-white teeth and giving them a little wave. This never fails to fill me with satisfaction, as all of the men on board are either missing teeth or missing limbs.

They applaud me and begin to call me closer. I see them clapping each other on the back and making loud, incompetent comments about my physical beauty. While this was exactly the goal, I can’t help but wonder if anything goes through their heads at all. The comments they make are sexual in nature, but even the most surface-level knowledge of marine biology combined with half a second of critical thinking would make them realize how impossible that is.

I start to do long dolphin dives towards them, the moonlight making the water on my skin glisten, while my tail glistens all on its own. As I approach the boat, the calming aroma of salt becomes mildew and rotting wood. They have a topless member of my species carved out of stone perched to the front of their boat, a reminder of why this plan works every time.

They scurry to the edge of the boat, where a fishing net hangs above them to fill me with a quiet rage. I wave at them again, this time to ask them to join me in the water. There is a hesitation, but their ignorant smiles are far more powerful, so I’m not worried about my success.

I begin to sing; the men are helpless. My voice puts them in a trance and the smell of body odor and booze gets closer and closer. They stare longingly at my figure, probably wishing I resembled the carving on the boat just a little more. They are so distracted that they don’t notice my once perfect teeth growing longer and sharper, with my fingernails following their lead. I give them the privilege of hearing my perfect laugh as their last sound of life.

Good thing this is in Stream of Consciousness and not Fiction because it's not Fiction. A year, I wish. I didn't just lose myself I gave her up. It's one thing to realize one day you're not you anymore it's quite another to watch it slip away day by day, seeing her go but not knowing how to get her back, how to convince her to stay. Can't beg someone to stay in hell. "You're here for the kid." Those words ring through my head still to this day. His kid mind you. Not ours, not mine. Let me repeat NOT MY CHILD. Not by birth not by marriage not by anything. And yes, I'm there for the kid, I was here there and everywhere for the kid but who the fuck was there for me? Not his father, not my father, just a fading me. I knew it was temporary, there wasn't a moment I didn't know it was temporary. "This too shall pass." Like a fucking kidney stone but still it will pass. That wasn't the question. The question was who will I be on the other side of this? What will be left of me? I left everything I loved not because I didn't love it because I knew if he knew he would do everything he could to take it so the answer is love nothing, not even yourself. Don't react. Don't move. Don't smile. Don't laugh. Don't speak. Just note it. Know that you heard what you heard, yes he just threatened to kill you. Say nothing. They call it gray rocking, I call it I'm dead inside. Sitting there in hell one day wondering "How the fuck did I get here?" "What used to make me happy?" Oh yeah! Writing. I used to write all the time. I bring the notepad out, I journal, I release, I see her again. She's been there, patiently waiting with me in hell, hiding herself away. I'm smiling because she's still there. I go home with a smile still painted across my face. "You're cheating aren't you?" Such a small mind to believe that anyone else but me could make me happy. From drugs to rehab straight back to drugs. OUT, OUT, OUT! I'm DONE I'm DONE I'm DONE! Gone. Not easily, not without police involvement, not without an order from the judge but gone. I'm still here for the kid. Now it's CPS. They think they can push my buttons, they have no fucking idea the hell I will reign down on them for this kid. No idea. I am the boat that will get him to the other side of this but this is no ordinary boat, no. I'm a cargo ship on steroids with a battering ram at the front of me cause I've gone through hell just to get more hell and now you're going to get my wrath. The whole fucking world can get this wrath. From chaos and court hearings to adopted I was there for the kid. Now I'm relearning to be there for me. To have that same fight, have that same fuck you mentality for myself. One word, one step, one day at a time I'm going to make sure she's never put on the back burner again. And she's going to write damnitt, she's going to write and smile to her heart's content and she's going to let the world think she's having affair after affair. The kid is safe now so watch the fuck out.

I never got the chance to say goodbye.

His parents told him it was for the best.

My parents agreed, but no one asked me about my opinion.

My guess is that Gregory sat silent waiting for the very same question.

But that was then.

Forty years later, four funerals were finalized, Gregory and I sat together.

We wondered what could have been, what should have been.

“I wanted to find you. I didn’t know where to look.”

“I wanted to look for you also, however, I began listening to those around me.

We would have never made it as teenagers. I realized this and I hope you did also.

Please tell me you didn’t waste your life pining for me.”

“I never told you goodbye. Thus, today is our second date.”

“So we never really broke up?”

I leaned in to kiss him.

“I think of it just as a very long vacation.”

"Your life is sad."

He spat this out with disgust evident in his tone, turning around and slamming the door as he left.

There was a time when he stood with me through it all; my highs and lows, my falling, my flying. There is a limit to a person's patience, however kind they might be. His wore thin eventually, watching me destroy myself slowly through every means possible. As I crumbled, when he would have once held out his hands to catch the pieces; now he simply watches.

"I lived it anyway." I mumbled at the closed door, waiting.

Sitting against your headstone, I leaned reaching to brush the leaves aside.

“I Couldn't share the pain, and watch you suffer! I hate heroin”, I cried out.

Memories began flooding my mind and our favorite songs like “Far Behind”, creating an eerie sadness in my heart.

“Some would say your life was sad but you lived it anyway. I never thought you’d touch it after seeing your parents flying oh so high. They left you far behind too”, I whispered.

All I see is you, in ICU hooked to machines on the cold day when you lost control.

Looping roots grown together as time floats by on the breeze in ever shifting colors. Brush the leaves aside, look at were we've grown together, twisted so tightly I thought we could never be unraveled. You see I know how you changed, fearing I would do the same.

You ripped us apart trying to preserve me. But bare bloody roots are all that I still have. I would have stayed with you, but you left me far behind, not wanting me to change in the same ways that you had. I thought I should tell you I did it anyway.

You made me feel beautiful, adored; summer love in a faraway place as real as fairy tales. I didn’t mean to treat you bad, but I did it anyway. Some would say your life was sad, but you lived it anyway. When I said goodbye, you simply ran away – sweet relief. There were no tears to cry or words to say. A simple Judas farewell kiss. Until the fateful day, I saw you’d tripped the final line into the abyss, alone while others watched you suffer, or mistook your pain for narcotic bliss–so young to seek death’s final kiss.

The clock struck 4, but you wanted more

Before the time flew past, and I everlast

Time passed, past, the bottom of the hour

And I watched it as my time with you became ever-so now'er

Who asked, who wants to know

The time it was an hour ago

Poised right here, stuck in place

On a people-mover pushing me ahead of your face

Another hour would give me the power

To choose viscerally, differently

But time marches on and even flies at times

But I circle your black hole making stationary rhymes