“Just keeping swimming” – Dory

She would watch it swim back and forth. Just left to right, right to left.

Oh, the irony of - how every time she watched it, it would be repeating the same routine.

Sometimes I swear it glanced over at her to check in.

She made herself believe that anyway.

A form of self-comfort I guess. “My only little friend. The only other eyes that experienced our downfall first hand. Swim little fishy swim,”

She was so happy when it came home. “My first ever pet”.

It was the first time after so long - I felt her radiate that childlike happiness that made my heart warm and her my only home - it was everything. Little did we both know, what was to come. What she endured with me. Love escaped from our world before we did, and the void got replaced just as fast, with a darkness that I wasn't even prepared for.

She would sit as still as she could with a tremble out of her control.

Why couldn’t I just see it? I mean I could see it - the way she watched them move through her blurred vision - but I just chose not to look.

She needed comfort, she needed the real me. I loved her but the demon in me was too strong to compete.

I was fighting myself. Fight myself from something I had no idea how to defend or attack.

Every teardrop she shed, was like poison to my chest. It burnt and it stung and it was so painful and personal - I wanted to wipe every single one away.

But it was as if the poison became addictive.

I wanted more no matter how much I knew it was wrong.

She made it easy for more. She was such an innocent soul. Why didn’t I make her smile, my addictive cause for more?

She gave me my fix and more out of love until she couldn’t take no more. I broke her and I don't recognize the woman standing in front of me anymore.

She fought for me but I was too cold and unreachable.

I was losing her and I was becoming increasingly out of control.

They kept swimming. Sometimes they would peak up, for some life and support.

She no longer watches them - maybe they became a discomfort now of some sort. She's no longer with me, I became the discomfort to avoid.

I changed the fish, they were reminding me of her. I reflect every day and remember what I lost. Her irreplaceability was now beyond my control and I now have to live my life with regret of losing her cos I was a stupid little boy.