Hanging from a hook under my heart; a goldfish in a bag from a fairground in my teens. If always it was there, and since then I learned its words, or it grew in response, I don't know. It makes no difference that hormones settled. It pays no mind to victories since. I sit here and its tail flutters, uncoded in my blueprints: the miracle balance of bone and muscle. She tells me it's a construct of wayward associations but my truth is my life and I'm here because I lived it. So take my truth and take my past and leave a child. And I'd love to loosen but the handrail I've warmed so nicely. And I guess that it's true what they say about change, and age. But I'm not living enough for one and my orange friend makes two. So he flutters; and my world shakes.