I am slipping in and out of myself like a fish over a dam. Slipping like catapulting, careening, plunging. I am slipping out of my body like a fish from the claws of a bird. I am gripping myself like a bird with my dinner. I am gripping the empty space where a fish used to be. My body was nothing for dinner. Dinner was a fish, then nothing, then my body. I was a bird, then I was just hungry.

Now, dinner is just shit because I am on the toilet gripping the fish, claws empty. I lean my back against the toilet lid behind me and realize I have been clawing the empty fish all day. My body is dinner, it’s chewed. I feel the teeth of the toilet sink into the bird of my back and I surrender.

For an instant I am the dam, loose with gravity and falling like a fish newly freed. Flying like a fish who is a bird. For an instant the fish of my body is the dam—free.