Feet treading water in the deepness of the ocean. Jess tans on the shore. Put your head under. The sounds become muffled, your bones becomes taught, your lungs tight. If you look up you can see the people above the surface. But they are not part of your world down here. If I didn’t know I would drown I would let my body sink in. Tender is my mouth as it curves over her name. Tender are the tides as it lures your love away.
I remember the first time we met, she was back home from uni and I was staying at a friend’s house. It was someone’s birthday party, and I was trying to keep my balance while dancing. Each spin and hip roll offering a deeper challenge. In the ravaging floods of youth, I think it’s quite nice to walk the edge between sober and tipsy and drunk. Call it stupid. I doubt anyone will listen.
But then there she was, sitting laughing at the table with a friend of a friend. Right hand hovered over a bowl of peanuts, left hand running through her hair and twirling one of the thicker strands. Memories fail me so I imagine the picture instead, there was a ruby ring on her pinkie and a chain of goldfish hanging down her neck. I remember smiling. I remember talking. I remember her telling me she was a horrible dancer and pulling her up anyway, “you can’t be horrible if you’ve got the right partner”.
In this version we graduate and travel and teach each other about how we see the world. I lie, eyes closed, in a bed I’ve only slept in for a month while the heart rate monitor slows. Still, my dreams bring me back to the waves of the coast. I remember screaming “yes” when she offered me the ring still on my right hand. On the coast she had clung onto my hand, and I had kissed hers in a silent promise. I remember being scared to have kids. She told me we didn’t have to. I held her hand as we ran into the ocean.
The same hand clung to the soil as salty water rolled down my wrinkled cheek. I shut my eyes and open them. My children are sitting on the edge of the bed. The consistent beeping grows less reliable. If I shut my eyes one more time, I hope I’ll feel her hand clinging to mine. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to differentiate between the feeling of your flesh and the touch of another? Name the emotion.
In this version she tells me she loves me on my mattress and six weeks later I lie in that same spot crying. It aches for a while as I write bitter poetry and learn what it feels like to bandage a young heart. Some of the poem might look a bit like this:
I said I liked it more when the trees were bare
When you could see the skeleton of sticks and stare
But now the nakedness scares me
The flowers are blooming again
Coming home to dull the pain
And I have found I’m entirely in love with the green
Amateur I know, but hey-ho, maybe it will inspire another poem. In this version I go home to the ocean and dive down. It will feel like every joint in your body is screaming out. Have you ever thought about how, if you go deep into the ocean the pressure will get too strong and your brain will implode on itself? But if you go a bit further there will be light and maybe love. I ask my mother if it will ever end, it does. Name the emotion.
In this version we kiss on the dance floor. Tongues twisted in tender tenacity until you forgot how to breathe, like when you’re at the horizon of the ocean and still choose to dive beneath. “I’m Ash” you whisper in her ear, and you pull each other closer; life vessels on the waves. You think hers is the most beautiful name you’ve ever heard. And how you long to have your name mixed with hers. In three hours', time you never see each other again. In three weeks, you forget. Name the emotion.
In this version I meet her mom, and she tells me how she used to hurt herself.
Her: You’re the only person who can make me happy
Me: Well, why are you usually so sad?
Her: I don’t know
Me: I don’t want you to
Her: To what?
Me: To be…like that
Her: Well, I do
Me: You want to be?
Her: Yes.
You’ll want to fix it (saviour complex). In this version I spend years worrying and lifetimes caring until I realise that’s not the version I want to live. There are these sliding door moments when you must accept you won’t always be a kid. Sometimes you’re not strong enough to save people from drowning, even if you’ve grown up in the ocean. Lace up your boots and walk out of the waves. Name the emotion.
Heart pounding faster in time with the music. These are the tides you know so well. So, tell me then, why do they scare you? Is it the option of the coast? Or the darkness of the blue?
I would like to dive in, will you be coming too?
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