9/365 Urochordate to Larval Urochordate Offspring

They don't want to acknowledge us, Son,
the chordates with limbs and bones,
heads and eyes and social interactions.
They look down on your old man,
look down and call me simple,
smiling politely,
as though these two siphons
are all there is of me.
They are blinder than we are,
with their fancy eyes,
mistaking our smoothness for frailty,
translucence for lack of substance,
describing us more by what they say is missing
than by the glorious anatomy of which we boast.
They take trivial note of you, my Boy,
remarking on you familiar larval form,
your symmetry, notochord, and cephalization.
They call you "tadpole,"
distancing their hearts from loving
a relative that looks so much
like they once did.
Keep your chin up, Son.
Don't let them teach you
that you lack the jaw to do it.
You swim, kid, while you still are able.
They once had your form,
but never your freedom,
their worm-like fetal bodies identical to your own
but not their liberty,
tethered by their blood cord
to the very placenta that defines their class,
they do not swim,
prisoner to the shackles of the womb
while the entire ocean is yours to discover
They dare think you should envy them!
Let them think this,
Waste their early days confined
Your youth is for living,
Exploring the wide surface and sea floor
selecting the perfect spot to lay your head
to begin adhesion
to call your home for the rest of your days
In their jealousy
they wish you did not begin as they do,
will not admit that it's better
They dare wonder why you would even need
a central nervous system at your age.
They will be forever ignorant of your plight,
the decision with which your life is consumed
If you choose poorly,
adhere to just the wrong rock or shell
you will spend your adulthood starving,
a lifetime of hunger and regret.
I have been there.
I have felt this.
For sessile adults
there is only one shot at settling
for finding the sweet spot
to call your own
Once you affix, though,
be prepared
You will grow and change
in ways the bipeds could never imagine
Your very being will be restructured,
your central nervous system will lose its purpose for being
your skin stretched like blown glass
a phantom tunic
You will become a two-necked vase
crowned sweetly with siphons
Incurrent, excurrent,
an elegant filter of an adult
for whom up and down
left and right
no longer have significance
You will feed
constantly
Incurrent, excurrent
You will need no brain,
have few movements to coordinate
You will be an adult
like your old man
It's a good life, Boy.
You won't miss the swimming
The humans will compare this change
to their "puberty"
as though growing whiskers
and having their voice crack
is anything like the dissolution of the spine
and the loss and growth of appendages
and internal organs.
Take this in stride.
They will call you a "sea squirt" because they don't understand.
With all their eyes and brains
They just won't see it.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5