Adaptation

When I was 21 and tired of school, tired of anger, and sick of hurting,
at Fisherman’s Wharf, I watched ships dock to drop off their iced, dead fish,
fresh from slow deaths at sea, but before that their lives lived free
in open water, caught up only in the ease of swim and the peace of eat.

I wandered down the pavement wondering about their quiet without care.
Stopping to stare over the edge, I saw a school of tiny neon blue fish zipping
in and out along the wharf side, electric and free, loving the moment.
Jumping in, I imagined, I’d submerge myself and swim for the bottom.

Standing down there, my hair waving wildly, I smiled at the darkening.
I breathed salt water air and drowned the way a pebble drowns
when it’s tossed in water, still a pebble but now on the ocean floor.
I was evolving then, knew I would adapt because I desired it to be so.

And, picturing me, I waited, my lungs becoming one with the water,
and I transformed into a silent pebble far from the world that breathed air.