it’s my party

 

My boyfriend called me from a petting zoo; we couldn’t think of the word “gamboling,” but when we did it was totally right. When goldfish die, they die by halves, first, the living half is pulled to the surface by its floating dead weight: a buoy. It’s the opposite of drowning. Funny when kids say drownding funnier when grown-ups say it. The time the little neighbor girl and I tried to kill a goldfish ’cause we couldn’t watch it suffer anymore, we stuck its flesh with sewing pins and still it kept on gasping for breath even though it was full of holes it wouldn’t die until we put it in the microwave and the room filled with its foul heat. The ghost in Crystal’s apartment smells like burning chocolate. Now I’m going macro, friends. And there are violent, violent people and I have known them. And there are violent, violent people and I do not want to know them. The fish go to the surface because they need a little air.

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polly conway is a writer, performer, and maker of tiny objects. She received her MFA in Writing at California College of the Arts. Her work has appeared in 400 Words, Tellus, and a chapbook, It’s My Party. She lives in Oakland and unabashedly enjoys Law & Order on a daily basis.