DOGFISH, miyuki kazuya

mostly, i want to be kind

Slowly

the dogfish tore open the soft basins of water.

You don't want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don't want to tell it, I want to listen

to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.

And anyway it's the same old story —
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.

Mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
or mean,
for a simple reason.

And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.

━━━━━━

"How'd your appointment go?"

"Three months. Three months and I'm cleared for rollercoasters!"

"I thought that was a joke."

"Whaaaat? No! January twenty-fifth —" you clap a hand on Miyuki's shoulder, grinning; he shakes his head, pulling into the parking lot of Birch Aquarium. "That's our day."

"Our? No way."

"Yes way."

He groans melodramatically and makes a perfect right swing into a parking spot. "So, what? Disneyland? Universal Studios?"

"What? Screw those guys! I'm talkin' about Six Flags, baby! It's Batman time!"

"How are you even cleared for that?"

"Well, I'm not yet. I'll schedule an appointment for the week before and if my doctor clears it, we're good to go. Speaking of, we should settle on a date."

"A date for our date?"

He's doing that more often. Mostly because the press has gotten a lot of pictures of you two hanging around the city and the more sensationalist tabloids are saying you're dating. Framing your whole meeting as one big meet-ugly that leads to a love story for the ages. You've both denied the rumors but mostly, you try not to think about it.

You flush. "No jokes or I'll drag you onto Viper."

"And what's that one like?"

"Terrifying enough to have you coming off appreciating life and loving your neighbor."

He snickers.

Realistically speaking, you probably won't be able to ride that one. Too much G-force. You'd either grey out or just straight up blackout.

Hector would kill you. If the coaster didn't do the job, anyway.

"You're all healed, then?" he asks as you approach the entrance.

"Brain bruises are gone and so is the fracture."

"Good. That's good." He hands the tickets to the attendant. You watch him.

You've been thinking about what Jerry told you for the past few days. About the incident with that little girl in Georgia. You aren't sure if you should say something. Anything. It was already a few years ago. Truthfully now, you're just...

Well, you're wondering if he is doing this stuff because he feels guilty. You don't want him to feel guilty. You want him here because he wants to be here. You want —

Nothing.

You shove the thoughts away and follow him. You'd both come early because you wanted to see the penguin feeding at one.