Sea Anemone
Sea anemone,
Swaying above the newly scrubbed
ocean floor of a tidepool home
Between glittery rocks, glazed with water
Slippery fingertips, grazing the top of a flesh eating petal
Family of a dozen daughters attached and unsettled
Cyclops mouth, hungry eyes
Be wise, and watch your step
Little boy, skipping curiously
Almost tipping
Watch your step
Family were fewer before
Grew larger with temperature
Bore flowery children
Unknown to science men
Climate speculations, merely an overture
They’re singing, sea anemones, chanting underwater
Silent chirping sounds, intuitive guesses, nothing is certain
Watch your step
She is sky blue, her sister is scarlet
Translucent vessels holding an invisible soul
Boy’s body is warmer, thickly clothed skin garment
Fumbling hands tightly pressed, between shell and rock
and his opaque chest
He likes being afraid, tickling every nerve ending
Hugging and crushing him
True danger is empowering, uncertainty is just not the same
Respectfully dying, or everyday transcendence
To lose all resistance, intentionally, to the sea
Rippling movements, sliding feet
pointy rocks cutting his toes from underneath
An oblivious dance
Billion marbles of glass built pavement
he is jumping now, up and down
performing polypian gymnastics
Sturdy and tough and flowing around
at the same time
Connected to the ground
Between flora and fauna, what is the difference
A boy turning plant, a hybrid,
Did he just fall in love?
Their disobedient sing-a-long binds him
Playing along with ideas of existence
For less than a second he giggles, sounding just like them
How bad could it be?
Tipsy from saltwater soon to be drowned
This prolonged excitement
Dragging him down
His love prayers answered
Goodbye cruel world, goodbye forest and beaches and teachers and fathers and dolphins and trees
Watch your step
A kingdom of queens and princessess,
with seaweed veil covered faces
A one time audience, a guest of the sea,
On the steps of the ocean forever a boy will rest and be free
Social media friends
We checked in to a hotel, with a thick bearded staff
Since we couldn’t afford it, we helped out instead
Washing the dishes, scrubbing the floor
Stitching the holes of old quilts, to keep warm
They were made by our ancestors, during a time
When everyone’s mind was on fire and dread
They served raw food and fruit, at the breakfast buffet
And porridge in bowls that were sprinkled with seeds
some making eyes turn and some turning heads
Giving them glowing and gleaming effects
A few of the guests had visions, the luckiest few
While others remained in a fixed state of need
The owner’s only son was a man made from a cat
He was often dismissed as retarded and weak
Stretching and bending, doing yoga all day
Making himself longer on the kitchen tray
Lifting his paws, rolling them back, turning into an orb
The cat man’s movements was a silent shriek
At dinner, a lady did readings for free with tarot
Sorrounded by therapy groups and animal parts
Animal beings, fuzzy handicapped kids
Woolly hedgehogs, bunny with synthetic ribs
Listened as she spoke of an ill-fated prediction
They all put their nerve cells on her zodiac chart
Outside, the garden turned blue like the moon
The sky was black and the hedgehog shivered
Running out on the lawn, freezing, whimpering
The sky getting closer, almost touching his chin
A red planet appeared, a cousin to mars
All of the hedgehogs weak spots were triggered
From planetarian beams, territorial lines were drawn
To protect the remains of a group situation
Softly scratching then tearing the surface
Removing the comfort that once held a purpose
If this was a war then we hugged and kissed
Before finally accepting complete separation
A fairytale princess
Once upon a time, there was a landscape.
Through the mountains and valleys ran a glittery river, succulent and majestic. It stretched from the beginning till the ending, where it married the big sea.
The winter was eternal and wrapped all the houses and trees in a sparkling quilt of snow.
The ground melted into the sky and the horizon was invisible.
From a distance it all looked so white and soft,
when in fact it was all unbearably cold and harsh.
The river was glazed with ice. But somewhere in the middle, a piece was missing.
On a closer look, you’d notice a hole. Inside of it there sat a former princess, waiting.
Her skin was gone.
She had been sitting there for ten thousand years,
pulsating with desire and lust.
She couldn’t remember much of the past, maybe she’d been born right here, nurtured by the black darkness, surrounded by seaweed and the suckling mouths of fish. Or maybe, she once walked the earth along with the rest of humanity.
During the ten thousand years that had passed, the princess had been constantly occupied by spiraling thoughts, which had gradually grown out of her head so high that they had started to reach the sky.
Millions of spirals blazed out of the river and gave birth to millions of more spirals that pierced through the atmosphere,
with a force so strong it made the world tremble.
Now was the time for whatever was supposed to happen, to finally happen.
The princess had longed for and feared this moment, so badly.
Heaven collapsed and fell down to earth.
The river cracked wide open and out came the princess,
reborn.
The earth was now a toxic place where no air was left to breathe.
The princess felt so much joy and horror. Her skinless body would finally step out into the world and scare the life out of its entire population.
She looked forward to it.
First of all, she decided to rebuild her body and self into a more fitting format.
By scraping the bottom of the river she gathered the most beautiful trash she could find and built a full-body costume made from shiny plastic.
She then reconstructed her face by using only artificial materials, in an attempt to look as natural as possible.
Now, finally, she would be able to act out and behave in all the ways she had always wanted.
The effect the princess soon would have on the population was something she never would have guessed or even dreamt of.
Of course she was eager to find out just how strong her power was,
but maybe not at the cost of her own existence…
The princess behaviour was starting to stir up an emotion that the population had never experienced before.
It was called anxiety
and it could only lead to one thing: a loss of control over mind.
Suddenly the humans felt this craving, like they had all been hypnotized or fallen under an ineluctable spell.
Their eyes were fixed in a trance-like stare, all focusing on the princess body.
They wanted her.
They wanted to offer themselves to her, give her affirmation and praise so unconditionally that they forgot who they were or even where they came from.
They were hungry and impatient.
Everyone wanted a taste of this new extraterrestrial sexual thrill.
The princess wasn’t really that interested in this new form of communication, but she played along with it anyway.
Finally, after the great feast of consumption had ended, the princess was inseminated by the gluttony and thoughtlessness of humans.
She started to give birth to new creatures, half human, half plastic.
There was a surrealistic time that followed.
The plastic newborns lived in colonies on top of each other,
merging and dividing like cells. Sometimes in a quite aggressive manner.
They were milking each other, eating each others energies.
The old hierarchy of society that once upheld order and peace was completely disrupted and everyone had become each others intrusive slave.
The winter turned colder and harder and one day, all the plastic newborns started to freeze to death.
This must be a fault in manufacture, the princess thought to herself.
Frozen plastic limbs were spreading out all over the world, multiplying in numbers.
This all happened in the most unappetising fashion imaginable.
In desperation, the princess started to pet one the few still living creatures against her will.
At first kind of roughly but when the creature started to scream she realised she had to try something else.
She softly stroke its frosty dying body until it finally looked up at her, smiling with gratitude.
New hope had sprung from its plastic marble eyes.
It felt calm,
the princess felt calm too. Why had she not tried this before…
She then began stroking and petting all the creatures that were still alive, and they all smiled at her, bigger and more authentic grins than before.
They gathered in a circle and gave her a new kind of praise, a sort of submissive thankfulness,
like she was their saviour,
like she was good.
The princess felt something tickling her inside, she struggled against it.
These genuine emotions suddenly embracing her.
She felt nothing but disgust.
Nauseated by her own creations and the responsibility that followed.
I AM NO GOOD!!!
The princess cried.
She started to peel off her skin, throwing the trash all around her.
Then, she came on to the creatures, attacking them one by one,
peeling off their skin as well.
They made no resistance.
They just stood there, waiting obediently for their turn.
This violent touch was still something they craved,
even if it meant dying.
Suddenly, the world was quiet again.
Snowflakes fell sedately to the ground. The earth slept, covered in ice and plastic.
New tribes of people was slowly starting to grow again, building up an old society, oblivious to the events that had just happened.
But out there, in the middle of the river sat a skinless princess, hidden deep inside a black hole.
Copyright Siri Elfhag, 2024