Interview with a Barnacle

The recorder clicks on. What made you stay? I didn’t stay. I fastened. I was made to fasten. And if you're made to fasten, you look for something moving. Something strong enough to take you somewhere. You tell yourself: better to drown in motion than dry out drifting. Were you happy? Is the leaf happy to believe the river chose it? Is the river happy to carry so much brokenness? Sometimes the wanting drowns out the sound of splintering wood. Did you know the hull was cracking? No. Or yes— but only the way you know storms exist, somewhere beyond your horizon. You hear a creak, you call it music. You feel a lurch, you call it loyalty. If you could go back— No. No apology tour. No redemption arc. I made my choice— it's permanent. I just didn’t know I’d lashed myself to something already sinking. Didn’t know the waves would only take us this far. It's the sameness that gets you. Is that why you speak in reflections now? Maybe. Maybe because reflections are the only things that still move around me. Or maybe because when you commit yourself to something broken, you stop dreaming about drift— rebrand it as patience. The recorder clicks off. The ship lists, leaking into the tide. The barnacle stays fastened— stubborn, small, not asking. She rides the current— nothing left but to learn how to live with it.