No Webbed Feet

Edinburgh. The beaches are Froggy, covered in frogs. Frog is like fog, but instead of gray waves of clouds, there are green waves of frogs. Not many in the water though. There are some that swim, but they stay shallow. Stay safe. You know how it is. A lot of them sit there and bellow or croak. The bellowing is cooler though, bellowing is a group activity. Bellowing together as a herd of frogs. A green wave of a herd of bellowing, swimming, frogs. It is hard to say how long the froggy weather will last, though it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be hard to say, I mean. I know everything that is now and then and soon to come. I know all about the frogs. I don’t know when they will leave. Maybe they know when I will leave. If I could laugh now, I would. Foolish. I don’t leave, or rather I cannot. Stuck in the sky, telling you tales of the froggy weather. They leave. I will not leave. They return. I remain. They drink too much of the saltwater and they drown and bloat. Green bellies up to the sky. I drink light. It tastes like morning until it tastes like nothing. Today it tastes like Tuesday. They go somewhere when they die, if you’re wondering (I know you are wondering because I know about you.) I don’t know where they go because they go above me. I watch them as green light shoots out of their bellies and flies above where my head could be. They go up. I remain. They look young when they die. I don’t know if they are, they could be as old as the ocean. It's something I should know, but I don’t. I don’t know because I decide not to. The ignorance makes me feel closer to you. More human. I want to be young. I want to feel young. I am not old, I cannot feel old. But I am not new. I see them become new. I see them die. I want to die. I want to become new. I want to have arms, I want you to give me something to grasp. I’m all spirit, but I am sinking. I suppose it’s not much of a life I’m living. Watching the frogs, watching you, listening to the waves. Before, when the frogs were newer, I had a fascination with similarity; how some of them seemed identical to me, yet within their herd, everyone could tell them apart . I lack similarity. I lack the assets to deem similarity and distinction. I lack the things that distinguish them from each other. No green shiny back. No spots. No eyes. No webbed feet. Nothing. 

I know things about you. I know about the emptiness of talking. The sky holding the wind. Honeybees. Black coffee. Rekindling old habits. Boundaries. Shea butter. Release. I see it all. Perhaps I don’t know it. But I want to. You all have stories, the frogs have stories, even the ocean, permanent like me, has a story. I wish I could split myself in two, but there isn’t one of me. There is nothing to split. I wish I could smoke a joint before breakfast. I wish I could worry about forgiveness. I wish I could have a drawer full of denim. There are a lot of things I wish for. I know how you all wish on shooting stars, I do it too. Though I wish for things, though I lack things, there is plenty I know. I watched the world grow. I knew the earth before the sky knew of you.       

There’s a girl I watch who has a cabinet full of china. It's cheap, she bought it from a tacky antique store. Lovely cheapness. That’s how she describes her home. The plates are adorned with animal figures. Baby lambs snuggled by their mothers, jumping frogs on lilypads, hunting dogs panting-duck in mouth. She thinks the plates are beautiful. Her boyfriend thinks they’re silly. He calls them whimsical. He calls her whimsical. I don’t know if he loves her. When the weather is Froggy, she covers the china plates in dead crickets and saunters down to the beach. Arms full of crickety plates. She holds them with grace. Sometimes she slips up and forgets to kill one. They jump on her, attacking her with wrath. She giggles at them before she pops a living one in her mouth. The frogs swarm her, saluting her and greeting her joyfully with their bellows. She’s a queen to them. That’s what I call her. Queen Froggy. I don’t know her real name. I could learn it, but I choose not to. I like Queen Froggy. She’s more human than a lot of you. She’s not terribly distinct, but she is weird. Weirdness is important in your world. People don’t notice normalcy much. She likes to wear Polka dot tights every day. She has a pair in every color. Sometimes, if you look closely, you can see little faces she’s drawn in on the polka dots. She’s covered in tattoos and she thinks about death a lot. There’s a big cricket on her left thigh, and a big frog on her right. She thinks about her parents every night. She’s only 23. I know why the frogs love her. She’s the most lovely thing they’ve ever seen. Pretty polka dot tights and inked skin. She’s custom in every way. No one looks quite like her, though she’s not terribly extraordinary. Of course, they mostly love her because she feeds them. I love her because she drags the dead ones out of the water. She sees the green light, too. She sees their spirit shoot up. She knows to wait until their light is gone. She wades into the sea, and they come to her. Their bloated corpses surround her and she collects them in a satin bag. It’s not waterproof. She buries them in her backyard. 

I know who I am. I love her because she knows who she is. The day she dies, I am going to catch her light. I’m going to reach out and hold onto it. I’ll keep her for as long as she lets me. I know I can. I know she’ll die in the ocean. It's what she wants. It's still froggy today. She’ll saunter down to the beach around ten, I think. Every froggy day, a small part of me prays she’ll drown. I am starving for the day that I catch her light. I crave her playfulness and her spirit. If I could die, I know it would be for her.