The Little Mermaid

A shadow just beneath the waters, you see her.
Her scales and skin shimmering under the sea foam.
But she’s gone to fast, leaving you with an unsure memory,
But you saw her…

A seabird’s cry of distress, a fish’s frantic flopping.
The ocean runs red with emotions that aren’t yours, but you feel them.

The gleam of her unclothed silhouette, the idea of her bewildered eyes.
You watch her from a distance, not wanting to get involved.
She stumbles on her new appendages, wobbling left and tilting right.
You sigh as she cries out; her skin not meant for this sand, her feet are bleeding.
She’s being held in a weary embrace, the arms of a Prince, her eyes glow.

The shadow of her small figure, through the glass, gowned in fineries to bland for her.
You observe the Love in her eyes, but find only Friendship in his.
Her coral coloured lips part in a laugh you know is silent,
She is not meant for here, she knows, but what girl, fish or human, can lock away Love?
So she shall waste away, wane and chap under the impurity of our world.
And you shall watch, fixated in a most shameless way.

She moves through the ball room, her face paler than the crested moon,
You watch as her pain takes shape and falls from her eyes: how human of her.
Now she’s dipping her feet in the water, trying to stop the bleeding.
She knows her feet were not meant to be shoved into slippers, they weren’t meant at all.
And yet, she puts them back on and returns to her Prince, who is now a King.
  
It is late, only the ghost of her paces the desk of the boat.
You can see one, two, three… six roughly shaved heads bobbing on the water,
Their bare shoulders gleam under the sea foam as they urge her to take the knife,
The whispered words to her, a language of innocent lost on our race.
These words, spoken to half-deaf ears, open her eyes and she cradles the knife.

No candles are lit, but you manage to make out her form, leaning over the King.
You can nearly taste her pain, as she studies their naïve embrace.
The moon moves behind a cloud, you can only make out her shining tears.
You don’t even blink as she throws herself into the waters, dying a human, in pain.
You watch and watch, wait and wait.
But the Little Mermaid is dead, having been tainted by emotions surpassing her innocence.


You are shamed to realize it was for the best…

THE END