As I float towards the gravelly riverbank,
I look at what once were my fins,
now worn down to but a nub.

Years of fighting to swim upstream had destroyed my body, and I can swim no longer.
I no longer fear leaving the cold,
blood-stained water;

The current is far too mighty for me to fight anymore.
The fish that swim past me look with such disdain and cruel pity,
another to fall to delusions of grandeur.


I wish to fight the current longer,
impossible in my mutilated vessel.
while the stream carries me to the bank,
I scrape my scales against the shallow, rocky river floor,
the last power I can muster against the stream.
My veins exposed and mangled,
gushing blood as if it were its own river.


My mangled scales leave no questions for whatever finds me,
For I was just a fish,
nothing more.