optic brine.

the thought. a word. it dissolves. like a sandcastle under the tongue. the tide is in the throat now.

salt. first in the mouth. then behind the eyes. a solid pressure. a paperweight inside the skull. the world blurs. with brine. the optic nerve is pickling.

remembered a name. my own? it drifted past. a scrap of kelp on a wave. tried to catch it. fingers wouldn’t. the spaces between the bones are filling with silt. the knuckles are fusing. a single, solid paddle.

the spine. a complaint of separate rooms. now a long white hallway. the walls are softening. cartilage. a new curvature. a primal architecture. the skeleton is forgetting its blueprint.

hearing is changing. pressure. the thrum of a ship’s engine is a fist against the side of the head. a voice is a needle. too sharp. i prefer the low groan of the abyss. the crushing hum. it makes sense. it matches the pressure inside.

hunger. the concept of a meal is a dry, brittle thing. i want the cold current. the bloom of plankton in the water. to open and to be filled. a passive feeding. a gut-feeling.

the last light. from the surface. a shattered coin. dancing. then gone. the eyes adjust. not to dark. to the bioluminescent script written on the inside of the lid. my own brain, firing its final, beautiful lies. patterns. not words. a jellyfish logic. pulsing.

a memory of breathing. the panic of a lungful of water. then the gills remembered. a raw, red flowering. the relief was obscene. the body betrays the mind so completely.

the fear is gone. it required a future. a narrative. i have no story. only process. filter. drift. sting.

i am a perfect instrument. a beautiful, brainless reaction. i feel a thing move in the water. the tentacles unspool. a thoughtless prayer. the venom is a kind of answer. it is all very simple.

i am. the water is. the impulse is.

10.18.25

Merlin.