I am the little mermaid, hopelessly devoted to your motherfuckin’ ass. You like me best because I can’t speak, and you even occasionally let me sleep outside your door on a velvet cushion like some sort of heralded Andalusian hound. You praise me for being devoted and true. For my pure spirit. And though I can’t respond to you, I want to tell you that I’d give up everything all over again to be with you, even though walking around feels like a thousand sharp knives piercing each foot every time we take constitutionals by the shore. The shore, constantly there to remind me of what I’ve lost. Of leaving a utopian existence to be with your motherfuckin’ ass. All in exchange for my motherfuckin’ tail. But that you could never have any idea of all I’ve done just to be here with you, to simply be in your midst so that I might fulfill the burning desire I’ve had for you ever since that day I saw you on your ship and then rescued you from the ravages and caprices of the sea thereafter. And yeah, taking long walks and exchanging meaningful and knowing glances is satisfying, but I’m starting to worry that you might not actually love me. That you see me merely as an interesting curiosity, a starter kit, a test run for someone else. Some bitch who can talk but still somehow say nothing.

You assure me that your journey to meet this princess in another kingdom will come to no meaning. That you’re merely obliging the request of your parents, who I know you must please because you’re fundamentally a pussy boy like them all. And I can accept that. I can accept anything you do because of how much I love and worship you. All I expect in return is just a small morsel of affection and reciprocity. Is that so fucking difficult for you? I mean, Christ, can you at least pass me a fucking piece of paper and pen so that I can explain, exactly, the extent of what I’ve gone through to be here in this shithole of a palace when I could be experiencing the true majesty of underwater life? I guess you would never presume that a “dumb foundling” like me could write, would you? God, you’re such a misogynist. How I fucking adore you. Even when you kiss me on the forehead like a hen pecking at an errant breadcrumb. Well I’m not a breadcrumb, dear Prince. I have the sweetest triangle to end all triangles–even if it does smell fishier than most other women’s. Regardless, I know you would like it if you just tried it. Yet I must be coy, play the evasive virgin in the hope that you’ll finally put your misogyny to good use and aggressively seduce me. I guess I’ll have to wait until you come back from your trip though. This trip you claim will have no bearing whatsoever on our relationship as you assure me that it is I who you would rather marry–if you must get married at all. Ah, the eternal bachelor at heart, aren’t you? How fucking original. You would prefer to inherit the palace and live in it alone, roaming the gilded halls aimlessly in between fucking naively hopeful princesses. Yes, I love you so for your willfulness. I might even love you this disproportionately because I know you don’t love me. This much is confirmed when you return to announce your engagement to the wisp you promised wouldn’t break us. When I see her for the first time at your wedding, which I am forced to bear witness to as your best friend, I want to explode from the pain. Not just the pain of seeing how much fairer I am than she is, but from the premonitory vision of my death in the morning, which the sea witch warned me about with vehemence before I gave that cunt my honeyed voice. At least I can say to the others in heaven that I had game like no other girl, that I almost finagled a marriage as a mute. But “almost” doesn’t count, does it? Certainly won’t make up for never being able to see my grandmother, father or sisters again, the latter of whom I’ve at least managed to keep in contact with when they swim close enough to the shore. I know you don’t care. Can never possibly fathom the immense loss I’ve incurred on this fucking gamble of loving you. Your new life is about to start, and there’s no place for someone like me in it. Some “little mermaid” with no chance, apparently, of ever procuring an immortal soul–you were supposed to be my meal ticket to that, and then you went and fucked it all up with your preferences toward parental obsequiousness and a twit who can talk once you feed her the right lines. And still, I want only your happiness. Only the best for you. Because it’s true, I can’t shake the intensity of my love the way I could once shake water from my tail while sitting atop a briny rock. Can never surrender all this feeling I have contained within my waif-like body for you. If only you had just given me some pen and paper to break it down for you, you goddamned prickhead. Maybe this all could have been avoided. Or maybe it was permanently written in the stars.

Some liars and platitude spouters prefer to ejaculate from telling you to have faith in sacrifice, in everything being okay. And I did. I did it all. Gave it all. To you. And in spite of how you treated my love as a compulsory act, as though it were owed to you only so that you could throw it away in the end, I still couldn’t kill you to restore my natural state. Couldn’t bear to watch you die so that I might live. Now here I am. Nothing but motherfuckin’ foam.