wishes

I want to be a mermaid, and live in a big porcelain clam shell that I can hide in so that bad things can never find me.  The inside will be filled with down comforters and I'll burrow through them into the warm, pulsing center.  I'll make my home there, and I'll have all my books and tea cups with dandelions painted on them and rows of little ceramic cherubs and baby animals.  The lighting will always be a pale gold but the plump, pillowy armchairs will be plaids of blue and green and red.

It's not only the outside, it's the inside too.  Me, myself I mean.  I don't know who I'll be after certain things happen.  I've shed my skin once already, and I became more caring, compassionate, loving.  But I also got my first glimpse of cruelty, of injustice, the unfair.  Who is the Nicole that has to be the strong one, rather than the one that needs support?  Can she handle that?  Can she learn to?  I don't think I've ever been that strong of a person.

I'd been stretching my legs longer, brushing my fingertips against the clamped clamshell lips, toying with the idea of opening it.  But it's different when I'm swimming towards it and when I'm being pushed by the tide.