As a child I loved when it rained…
a fascination with water,
(albeit I can’t swim).
On nights that it rained,
I would race downstairs
and peer out the screen door.
I waited for her.
Mermaids can’t talk, but we
communicated telepathically.
She would tell me epic things,
like the sun sets at the same time,
at least three times during the year.
And when the rain stopped,
the puddles disappeared and so did she,
but her spirit walked the earth.
The word lonely,
a word that once plagued my being,
soon became nonexistent.
“There’s a mermaid in our backyard,”
I told my mother, smiling
while eating a strawberry ice pop.
Her back was to me.
I couldn’t tell if she was in a mood
to talk or in a mood to sulk.
“Mermaids are mystical creatures in the North Atlantic.
They lure ship captains to rocks,” she explained.
I crouched down, listening intently,
and allowed my rapidly melting ice pop
to drip into a puddle. The same puddle
that was once home to my mermaid friend last night.
“Why would they lure ship captains to rocks?” I asked.
“To crash their ships and kill the captains,
sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose.”
I asked no more questions for fear of what I…
what she would hear next.
The sun was radiant, the air not too humid.
I knew her spirit was walking the earth.
I favored the rain over the sun.
