Chummy

You call me by a stranger’s name.

What happened to his spots? You.

Got 'em lasered off. Your father.

A photograph of you and me together. Your gap-toothed grin like sloughed scales. My face, a stranger set in familiar skin.

How much longer before this borrowed name is inflicted upon another, passed down like a hereditary disease?

Humans speak of our memory as transient. Dissolving like the air I swallow and eructate. How can something no larger than your smile carry the heft of consciousness?

My memories are all I have. They bloom like the algae that fogs the water.