I retrieve my tentacles like an octopus with three hearts. In a manner of a fishing net with delicate blunt hooks by the edge, I spread myself to catch the favorable offerings. Over excited about fulfilling the romance prophecy. Rushing, not seeing, not reading, while the red flags play a decorative role to be ignored, unless, until the wind blows, strong, and their flapping, like fingers snapping, lastly breaks the spell. I retrieve like an octopus to heal in my cave, with a garden, in peace, by the shade. With my tentacles I taste life, the one I’ve built. My life. The one where I fit, where I thrive. Surrounded by wood, colours and rhymes. And the sea. I live by the sea, I swim. With my tentacles I play with shells, with algae and a seal. The cold water gets my skin to shine. I wash off the musk from my outer layer for nothing deeper grows when we fast forward life, trying to get ahead of time. Clean now, with my tentacles safe, I look at the trees and everyone that in there lives sipping from the treat in my morning’s first cup. I let the air deep into my lungs and, as I exhale, I let myself flow, once more, into the unknown.

Like an octopus with three hearts. Short-story from “12 o’clock-tales” (The red table & A scared black cat, book adventure)