Gruesome Tales from Nature: The Fish and the Para-Tongue-Parasite

 “No-place-like-home,” she uttered 
And her lovely shoes took her flying 
Burning color and spreading sparkles 
Back to her black-n-white castle 

These are the thoughts that troubled the parasite 
While he mechanically ate the tongue of the fish 
Replacing it with his own scrounging body 
And a mind filled with technicolor projections 

And yet, in only a matter of seconds 
The uninvited guest felt bewildered 
For he no longer knew if he was a tongue or a parasite 
Just like in movies, a line had been crossed (or a witch had been killed) 

Stuck in the hollow jaws of the fish 
He pondered incessantly 
Like a true and mind-numbing scholar 
Over this newfound identity 

Perhaps his thoughts weren’t his anymore 
Perhaps his hunger was now someone else’s 
Perhaps his movements were but a series of accidents 
Perhaps the river had taken him-them-him upstream 

He could still think, therefore he existed 
Or so he concluded, like so many others 
Yet as he peered through the teeth of the fish 
The more he felt like a tongue—subservient 

Have my colorful thoughts turned into slime? 
Am I uttering things that I do not mean? 
Is this a technicolor film on surfaces and bodies? 
Where is that black-n-white place I used to call home? 

Although sheltered and well-fed 
The parasite grew increasingly confused 
Captive within the folds of a tongue-twisting dilemma 
He resolved to identify as: “unique-yet-inherently-perplexed” 

However, millions like him were just as bewildered 
And so he could only become: “neither-unique-nor-self-possessed” 
A tongue, but not a tongue 
A parasite, but not a parasite 

His body—a pure mass of fuddled electric wires 
Fired at high speed the existential abécédaire of a parasite in crisis 
The monstrous arrangement of a growing brain trapped between two jaws 
Made the host look as if he had a tongue too big for his mouth 

And so the parasite was now a tongue and the tongue was now a brain 
Or the brain was now a tongue that was in fact a parasite 
Or the parasite was a brain by an interval of the tongue 
Or the brain, the tongue, and the parasite were all the same slimy thing 

If I only had a pair of red sparkling shoes 
I would be able to find myself in this dim space 
And, although transformed, I would arrive to my black-n-white castle 
Like all heroes do after they have killed the witch—or for that matter: the fish