Watery Grave

Glass walls close in on me
as I walk through a dim maze
of dead eyes and floating graves.

The air is foul and filled
with the noise of gurgling bubbles,
within invisible cages guarding
scaly beasts.

Bodies slowly decaying
among the barely living,
providing food, disease
and lining for the bare ground.

It is not a nice sight.

For some, life is good
if the price and value is high.
They receive the choicest food
and a space of their own.

For others, life is pure hell.
Food is meager, air is scarce
in their cramped cells, and
someone is always getting killed
each day.

It is bad enough to see dead 
bodies floating in the water,
but it is even worse to watch
life slowly leave the living
and death set in.

Life is never fair.

8/07/01 -- 8:05pm

I've always hated aquarium shops. They reek too much of death and imprisonment. I have a deep-seated phobia for things that swim in tanks. Has something to do with a childhood nightmare of wandering in a dark aquarium shop with monsters instead of fish in their tanks. Snakes in tanks scare me too.