Water coolers hum and gather intel. The inside actor dries out when removed from the greater pool. If reduced to a single body part, you would be the bony labyrinth of the inner ear. The gravest maritime disaster was to crane for inland sounds.

Deprived of vessels. Deprived of oil paints. Squid could hold galas if they wanted to, but they don’t. Besides, their miraculous arms are splayed on the chopping board. You’re as home in your home as a dress covered in security tag ink.

Extreme starvation dines on the body at night like a seafarer. Abject grey cat screams for caviar — she once tried caviar. She files her claws on the dock now wrapped in Russia's mirror. A lukewarm wooden stew with borer. You lie at the bottom of a well.

Nothing to do with longing but wait til it’s threadbare. Words know to toggle between flat-earth and sphere, know where to wrap. A future is the white pool ball sunk. You escape with one pillow of dry leaves.

Thin crusted sand underfoot. Others won’t remember, but you were deprived of yourself in the dunes. It’s memory that commands you. Cut open the beam to decompress alien slideshows. It’s never today inside shipwrecks. You sift carefully for scraps of affection. Even if you had hated oysters.