12 | Psychopomp Magazine
of her request.
“I mean, it’s not like you can just walk around to find the nuclear weapon key codes, merbaby. You don’t have any legs.” I’d stopped taking her to anarchist meet ups for her own good. I wanted my merbaby to be interested in ballet and the theater, but instead she concerned herself with anti-establishment manifestos, which also seemed to be popular in the music she listened to, for some reason I don’t know. I guess this just goes to show you that no matter what a parent does the kid just wants to rebel and it was kinda brutal especially when her arguments were arranged as hipster rap lyrics, containing some explicit words which I do not think the FDA would approve of.
She rapped: “Fuck you I’ve bounced freestyle at Gambino at the Cosmo with the thongs of my stereo lucking lambent curls feeling secret pizza with my cuticles.”
I thought perhaps this all was some kind of revolutionary code, I mean what other reason did she have for making absolutely no sense?
“You’re not my zookeeper break your cunt on this Ar-tist they held out on sound too long like your analyst.”
I can’t imagine where she would’ve gotten this brand of self-righteous pondtification—certainly not from me. Maybe it was part of her gene pool. I’d avoided that scene, not to mention flavored vodka and UFC fighters, since her birth, all in my effort to be a good mother.
Merbaby continued: “I’m souped up Eastside from Paradise by way of your stainless steel thermos, in short, a teacup.”
She shed a croc tear, tail swishing to-and-fro. It was the cutest fucking thing I’d ever seen. Then she twirled, around and around like the ballerina I’d always hoped she’d become. It was then that I realized … I’d wanted my merbaby to have the dream I’d once dreamt for myself, back when I wrapped my loneliness in tulle and performed it for other people’s parents. But that wasn’t her role to play in this fucked up world. She was meant to be the antidote for the bitter elixir I’d drunk after countless failures and empty encouragement that led to disappointment because I was never quite good enough to get the role. I taught her to fuck them all, so of course she’d grow up to be a militant mer-tween.