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FISHERMAN'S HOOK
We live in the world's seas.
Congregating countless millions,
offspring from the sharks.
Our flattened white bottoms have a heart.
We have fins, eyes, thorns, a snout...
Don't think us as dull.
We have friends; we socialize.
I am stingray. I am intelligence.
Drifting off alone to raise my young,
with fins to fly and a whip with poison,
defending against predators that come.
I drift ashore to feed on fish and
hear the roar of humans ashore.
Burying down in the sand, I feel my
babies beginning to expand.
The time has come to bare new young,
"Ouch" my mouth caught by something sharp,
I'm being pulled toward the shore.
No! Not now, my babies have almost come out.
Pulling closer to the surf
my strength is not enough to resist.
Taken closer to a human outlook,
trying to resist the drag.
My body spun upside down, they
slide my snout up on dry sand.
This was more than I could stand.
I lie helpless-hooked upon dry land.
My pelvis released a tiny three babies
onto the shore's unnatural earth.
I need water in my natural domain,
I'm struggling now, how can I breathe?
I feel a sense a human's regret.
He removes the hook that earlier took.
Red blood flows across my eyes, as I look to my babies.
They lie unnaturally beneath the dry blue sky.
I am the stingray, I can no longer stay.
I'm fading away, because of the Fisherman's hook.
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