Thessalonike

by Gaia Rajan

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In the Greek myth of Thessalonike, a young girl
walks into the sea after her brother’s death,
intending to die, but becomes a mermaid instead. 

After he died, they tattooed a mantra
on the feathered insides of my skull: you are in control
of your life. You are in control of your life. Fine. 

My body survivor. My brother survived by. 
My name is no longer important. I’m all 
heat, all panting witness. Leaking, weeping sweat

through my scales. A thrum of minnows circles me
for seventy days. I bite down and sing beautiful lies
about healing. I turn light-hungry, turn blue 

and desperate for chocolate or blood, 
turn in my sleep towards the carcasses 
of sinking turtles, silver fishing wire 

strung welted through their mouths. You
are in control of your life, says the fish
before his flank snaps up to the light, 

dead already. He is an easy symbol.
I hate the water for making me tell the truth
about my life. Hate the people above for celebrating

my new ghosthood, for looking down 
and down into the water and seeing something
like a god. Someday there’ll be nothing left to spare.

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Gaia Rajan is the author of Killing It (Black Lawrence Press, 2022). His work has appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Best New Poets, the Best of the Net anthology, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. Gaia is an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University. He lives in Pittsburgh and online at @gaiarajan on Twitter or Instagram.