06.04.02 - 11:50 am

rice cakes, in pieces and fragments scattered and stuffed into the folds of tightly woven carpet at my feet.

im starting to convince myself that my fish, especially walter, have reached a level of realization that i control their existence. and the stimuli that they experience. they exist in anxiety and intrigue, curious to what new experience i will allow or force them to savor. they watch what i do just as i watch them. but my casual observations arent constricted to just under 29 gallons of water with a pathetic caricature of a reef. walter knows better. his first experiences of life were sparkling turquiose water, a constant tidal flow carrying millions of flashes of color and motion and scales and claws and eyes and teeth. the warmth he felt was in liquid form, and the excitment he lacks now he mournfully requests of me each time i sit down in front of his confinement and want something better for him, but cannot financially afford. he knows what the the waters off the coast of papua new guinea feel like. i know what they look like on a kodak glossy print piece of paper.

i just romantisized my fish. its like saying someones pet rock misses the security of the center of the planet where its senses were nauseous with the constant pleasing flush of crushing pressure, and the crisp smooth blanket of white magma. i knock myself out.