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Night Swimming
by Jennifer Met --For my Heathers Sleeping naked one sweaty night in just my scanty sheets, I roll to the cooler side of the bed. The ceiling fan traces gentle sighs along my bare back, every humid inch. The bruise-blue covers rippling over my stretching legs like water, the cotton slipping against my skin and sticking to me a little--I feel raw. dreams of missed finals-- my sprinklers shushing the past day’s heat into mud Later I dream I am the ocean. The moist sand glowing in the moonlight, the salt spray filling the sky and shifting between my outstretched fingertips. I sling my damp hair back from my forehead and jump as the surf, seaweed caressing my bare legs as I gasp and laugh wet breaths. The tide slowly consuming my clothes to artifacts with each, deliberate lick. And, again, I feel raw. Sublime. Alone in the endless wide. And all at once I am losing my balance. Sea bubbles shiver up my back. An elbow rubs along the shells and rocky bottom. I scramble for a second until I know, for certain, that my voice no longer matters. The indigo waves crashing, plunging and pulling, forever pulling, overhead. from my secret spot-- the spiraling milky way telescopes open But it is a dream. And suddenly I am seven years old again and sitting on the curb next to handlebars sprawled at such an uncomfortable angle against the summer asphalt. A breeze whispering on my skinned knee--a glazed red sea with pink tattered shores and a tide dazed unearthly still in the blowing wind. rose petals blooming from the depths of my scraped knee-- accidental grace I sit for a long while, there on the cement curb, just feeling the cool sting. I sit and sit, alone in myself, enthralled and startled anew at each continued breath. And while it throbs, it is oddly exhilarating to feel so deep--so raw--my skin peeled open, my private blood so naked to the outside air. with his eyes closed tight the newborn puppy shivers-- and we watch from here When I wake, I will call your name. A part of me will still miss you. I will turn off the alarm clock and make my way to the bathroom, ever waiting to heal a little tighter, a little cleaner. And I will go on living for yet another day—fated to forget, once again, the infinite depth of black… |
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