I turned my body into a pill and swallowed it

It feathered me, it freed me, it made me well. Lifted dread, frizz, small pieces stopped falling off. It floated me, it rode on the back of a squid, it had no bones to pick about anything. It washed up on the beach, a green bottle with a message: consume me. It fell

onto driftwood, became a white and red rowboat crashing waves, smashing into seawalls. Grand illusions bobbed like dollhouse miniatures, clock hands that measured worth spilled into the ocean, drugging time. It was anti everything: histamine, racist, biotic, frantic. Aches left, heartache hovered and drifted away. It twisted me in seaweed, made me thirsty for salt,

drained my cup that overfloweth. It blossomed into red and white anemones, a box of oysters, rose water. Mer-priests anointed me, flipped tails, get your canons off me! it screamed underwater. Propelled me into a new tide, hauling sea-ass, scraping coral, singing with jellyfish, stinging me holy.

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Originally published in emerge 23, The Writers Studio Anthology, 2023.