"Horseshoe Crab" • Slothrust (by Stephanie Anderson)

these days i spend all my time cross-legged at the bottom of the ocean, naming the shapes that the sun dapples into the shifting ceiling of the universe, unreachably above. constellations of glass bottles drift, galaxies of plastic rings. little freakish fish weave through sunken ships, the little broken windows, one thousand colors muted by the murks of our depth. the lookdowns and i have an understanding. i want to think you know nothing rots at the bottom of the ocean, that everything stays exactly as we left it. perfect and intact, marking time, waiting out. someday the lookdowns will will themselves to have bones and crawl into glistening futures. the seahorses left a long time ago. i’ve always been angry that mantis shrimp can see a broader light spectrum than us, have access to more colors than exist, that there are still some things i can never grow into. instead i am lying with my back pressed into the dense sand. i am boring fingers in the silt, gripping. i am trying to speak clearly to you but the waves keep changing shape.

Stephanie Anderson (she/they) is a library worker, grad student, union organizer, and sack of mold from Baltimore, MD. A stranger once asked if she was a "goth white girl or emo white girl" and she replied "I'm just like this?" Sign their guestbook at whoastanderson.com, or find them @whoastanderson everywhere else.