ORIGIN: It’s the same series that inspired the dark woods we did a while ago. Remember those poisonous apples? Waves lull to sleep too, and we thought that it would be nice to give mermaids a forest of their very own.
Breadcrumbs are no good, this is a forest of mermaids. You have strayed into the noose of their unforgiving song. Your heart is good and snared, you won’t be retracing your steps anytime soon. All isn’t lost, though. Pluck a fishbone from one of those trees and prick your finger. Write a happily-ever-after in red. Open your veins to that abyssal cold. Who knows, maybe it will take pity on you and grant you a mirage or two.
Is that the skull of a bird? Are you dowsing for a way out of this forest of doom? I see. Mermaids have tails covered in scales, they aren’t whales. You won’t be lured by rustling leaves. It takes more than wind through trees and ribcages to have a hold over you. Fish don’t sing, and those mermaids can’t touch you. That’s what you believe, and I would never burst your bubble.
Night falls, like shipwrecks to the bottom of the ocean. In the dark, mermaids cling to leaves the color of blood and sing. This forest reeks of carbon dioxide lullabies. Your fear is but a drop in the ocean. These mermaids want you to hold hands. They want you to try and cling to hope. But you are no match for their song. Cold sweat in the palm of your hands and hearts pounding against your ribs. Your hope is water, their song is oil. You can join hands, but your hearts won’t keep you afloat. Soon, you will wake to adulthood.
No monkey has ever fallen from these trees. No bear has ever dragged fish carcasses far into this forest. Hearts tend to be our own worst enemies. It’s easier to blame mermaid songs, but this is life, not a dream. You aren’t spectators on a collision course. You have two feet, you can jump ship long before the wreck, or at the very least try. If you close your eyes and give in to that song, you have only yourselves to blame.
Water off a duck’s back is not the saying I am looking for, but it comes close. Songs go in one ear and out the other. Mermaids have no hold over me. They can’t ruin my life. There is nothing I treasure. If they want to litter the bottom of the ocean, they will have to look somewhere else. I believe in unconditional happiness. I don’t replace, I don’t compare. I just breathe in, breathe out, and move on.
When did sirens devolve into mermaids, I wonder? Birds fly beyond the horizon, somewhere ready-made warmth awaits them. There’s no beakful of twigs. No cold breath or songs frozen in midair. When they rubbed their brain cells together, birds dreamed up flight, not fire. There goes my urge to change the world. There’s something called the path of least resistance, and that horizon is calling my name.
Green-leafed innocence doesn’t last. We aren’t mermaids, we don’t turn into bubbles. There is nothing seamless about us. Some heartbreaks hurt more than others. Leaves fall and rot into the ground. Children grow up and fit into society. Friends. Your beloved. It doesn’t make a difference. Belonging will always be a traumatic process. But most of us are willing to pay the price.
Do you know how the dictionary defines being shipwrecked? The ship goes down, like the sun below the horizon, but you get washed ashore. Doesn’t that give you hope? Even if captains don’t go down with the ship anymore, I thought that mermaids still prided themselves on doing a thorough job. But far be it from me to complain. I will even sing along. Why grow up when I can stunt my growth and enjoy being a child until the day I die?
Mermaid songs have a limited audience. Oxygen has a wider reach. If I were a mermaid, I would have anchored my hair too. Deeper than any other root. I would have become a tree, and my song would go from lung to lung. Sowing discord and shipwrecking hope. Sadly, a mermaid I am not. A fish out of water, that’s what I am. The human heart is beyond me. I can rock boats, but I can’t drag anybody down to the darkest part of the ocean.
A flock of birds. A school of fish. Singing as one. Swimming as one. Crowds are the loneliest places on earth. Some trees intertwine their roots. And everything that is good, water and sugar flow freely between them. But I will never know what sunlight tastes like. Mermaids might get tangled in fish nets, but they don’t tangle their hair. The joy of shipwrecks doesn’t flow between them. If I lost my voice, no one would lift me up. I would drown in the joy written all over the faces in the crowd.
Trees shed their leaves, but fish don’t shed their scales. There is no such thing as a second chance. Mermaids aren’t birds. Their songs aren’t plastic, they don’t crystallize. Mermaids are born of dark and cold, where all shipwrecks are buried. Their hearts harden long before they open their eyes for the first time. Their songs don’t change. There are no yellows and reds. There are no browns. Cold blue and vinyl black, that’s all there is. A broken record. And it hurts. Because I keep picturing leaves, not scales. I want to get rid of everything and start all over again. But I can’t.
I read somewhere that the heart is the seat of the soul, but all the stars belong in my brain. I am not a tree; I wasn’t born to stay put. My skull is a ship. But there are holes in it. My ship is taking on mermaid songs. I would love nothing more than to follow those stars to the ends of the earth, but somebody else is now at the helm.
Where there was one now there are two. Did you at least part on good terms?
Left: It was poetry in motion.
Right: I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Left: The way each of us took an ax and wrecked those trees. Splinters flew like crashing waves.
Right: We sure made those mermaids proud.
Left: It was a fitting end to that forest of mermaids, wouldn’t you say?
Right: I’m glad I listened to you. Sawing logs and lulling waves go hand in hand. If only I hadn’t forgotten to wish them salty nightmares.
Left: Don’t you worry, my other half. Mermaids can read between the lines. That’s why their songs never fail to squeeze into our hearts.
Left: Lightning stole our thunder.
Right: It’s not fair.
Left: Mermaids take their time. Seduction is supposed to be an art form, and I wanted to enjoy the collision course.
Right: It was all over in the blink of an eye. Lightning struck out of nowhere. The ocean inside that tree evaporated, and the bark exploded. I was still composing my song, but everything ended in a single charred note.
Left: I have no respect for mermaids. They lure ships to their wreck, but their hands remain white as waves.
Right: I know, I know. You want blood on your teeth. The better half of an earworm. You want to bore into hearts and watch them take on water. You want to reduce others to tears. Like any wood boring insect worth its name, you want to yell timber at the top of your lungs. But you shouldn’t bite off more than you can chew. You are not a mermaid; you can only fell one tree at a time.
These aren’t garden gnomes. Mermaids don’t belong in puddles, they belong in the sea, where their songs can ripple to their hearts’ content. But there is a fine line between joy and ruin. Mermaid songs can’t be allowed to run rampant. From time to time, beards have to be trimmed.
A little bear told me that if it weren’t for fish carcasses, some trees wouldn’t grow as tall as they do. I don’t have anything against mermaids. It’s just that most works of art sell better after the death of the artist, and I have grown desensitized to ripples. Hair grows thicker after a cut, and I want to listen to a wave that’s 100 feet tall.
Most birds can’t wait to take wing and leave their nest behind. Others need a little nudge. There’s a songbird in every mermaid’s ribcage, but water is cold, and sometimes that bird has to be coaxed at scissorpoint. When you are warm and cozy, you lose interest in the outside world. Some mermaids even go as far as developing a conscience and zipping their lips. But songbirds shouldn’t have any qualms about following the sun and dragging ships to the bottom of the ocean.
I know best. You don’t look like you believe me. The scissors are in my hand. What more proof do you need? Plants just grow towards the sun. But I have a vision. I have the tools to make it a reality. Look back, in the beginning there was a big bang. Destruction. The most breathtaking mermaid song. I have listened and I have learned, which trees to prune in order to create heaven on earth.
I’m drained. Sapped. I don’t feel like trimming my beard. Let them sing, I’m done. Forests are dark at heart. Everything’s in vain. Hope is nothing but a false promise.