I don’t know what’s wrong with him. I really don’t.
Every night he comes out here on his little boat and sits under the stars and I’ve tried everything but nothing will work.
I’ve sung my heart out for him, I’ve whispered his name on the breeze, I’ve swum seductive circles round his ship. Quick coquettish flashes of bare skin between the waves, playful splashes with my hands, with my tail, even with my whole body on occasion, leaping high overhead, spiralling in a perfect arc above his boat, rolling and turning and winking as I go, like some desperate theme park whale performing for her lunch, before finally landing in a theatrically lavish way, a plume of water rising up after me in the shape of a heart, perhaps, or replicating my arc in reverse like a rainbow, the edges of it raining down in a fine mist on his upturned face like a caress.
None of it works.
He looks so lonely, too. That’s the funny thing. Usually the lonely ones are the easiest. But not this one. I’ve never known anyone this difficult to seduce.
I fear I’m going to have to resort to brute force soon, smash his ship against the rocks and pull him down to the depths in all the commotion and the carnage of the waves I’ve raised against him. But oh god, the embarrassment of it all, to resort to such crass tactics. The shame.
I’ll never live it down.
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Notes:
1. Written in January 2018
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