What If I'm a Merfolk?

By Dawn Vogel

Becoming a merfolk. Accepting yourself. Defending your home. Anguishing over environmental degradation. Exploring mythology. And falling in love. What If I'm a Merfolk? collects 23 poems and 3 stories about merfolk and their kin, capturing a range of emotions as protean as the sea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DefCon One Publishing
• Release date: Aug 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005291181

Dawn Vogel

Dawn Vogel has been published as a short fiction author and an editor of both fiction and non-fiction. Her academic background is in history, so it’s not surprising that much of her fiction is set in earlier times. By day, she edits reports for historians and archaeologists. In her alleged spare time, she runs a craft business, helps edit Mad Scientist Journal, and tries to find time for writing. She lives in Seattle with her awesome husband (and fellow author), Jeremy Zimmerman, and their herd of cats.

Book preview

What If I'm a Merfolk?

Dawn Vogel

Cover art by Ariel Alian Wilson

Copyright 2020 Dawn Vogel

Smashwords Edition

historythatneverwas.com

patreon.com/historythatneverwas

Catch is Copyright 2019, all other stories and poems are Copyright 2020

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

For the Weird Girls Who Want to Be Mermaids

Whole

How the Sea Floor Becomes an Ossuary

Sunset (Nonet)

The Mermaids Know

The Once and Never Queen

Tsunami

Maintain Tranquility

Streamlined

Everyone's Got a Soft Spot

Tropical Waters

Drown

Adrift

Treasure

A Paean to the Goddesses

Anglerfish

Big Fish

Evolution of Love

Righteous Wrath

The Song of the Depths

The Eye of the Beholder

Selfies

Trapped

Death by Longing

Not Drowning

Catch

About the Author

About the Artist

For the Weird Girls Who Want to be Mermaids

The first Monday of May is the day you realize that the skin on your legs, formerly referred to as fish-belly white in mocking tones throughout the halls of your high school, is actually pearlescent.

You prod at your skin all through AP Calculus, while Ms. Davenport drones on about what will be on the final exam, trying to see if you can discern any scales ready to burst through and prove you've been a mermaid all along. Mermaids don't need to finish their junior year and visit colleges and find a part time job. You start rethinking your summer in light of this impending freedom.

But you don't find the hoped-for scales. Instead, all you find is dry, flaky skin and reddening bumps.

On the bus home, you notice Jessica's skin looks pearlescent too, in spite of her skin being naturally tan year-round. You ask her what kind of lotion she uses. She ignores you, because cheerleaders don't care about scrawny red-headed weird girls, and they already know where they're going to college (State, naturally) and where they'll be working this summer (the mall, of course).

You wake up on Thursday to a stabbing pain in your right thigh. Your leg is tangled in your sheet, and as you unwind the two, a scale the size of your thumbnail tumbles from the sheet onto your mattress. A hole in your thigh of similar size and shape oozes blood.

Your heart races even as you try to make logical