Man In Waters
I won't try to describe, in much detail, what almost drowning feels like. I've been there multiple times. The lower I sink, the more real it gets. Then there's nothing there. Fear is too fast of a word to be used here because how can I feel fear when my body has already gone still? A male is always torn between what he should be and who he is. On top I sort of had to be domineering, half-desensitised, easy going and able to throw away personal ambitions for the sake of something called the greater good. As one can imagine, it is worse as a black male in a different ethnic social context. Years of emotional and physical abuse leaves this rough hungry man on top. This is the person that comes out when a love speaks of someone else. Or when another man gives an inappropriate stare. Or when my ability to provide is questioned. I detest almost everything about this...except for the instant rush that comes with a forceful grab, a loud punch or a deep fuck. But as quickly as it comes it goes. Like the first breath of fresh air. The fact that I'm of African descent always leaves a spill of dread floating to the surface. I am not humanised like everyone else within an ethnicity. Just someone other races don't seem to fully understand..and that's the humor. As with anything that is not understood it is either feared, rediculed or sexualised. All of which I still go through. Sinking deeper arrives me at a more honest iteration of who I am. The child-turned-teenager that fantasises about nothing but slight intoxication to numb the pressure. A dim, quiet atmosphere of soul music, herb smoke and nothing else. I did this to hide from the frailty that comes, not with being a young man, but with simply being. Love stories were always replaced with more romantic notions of me being able to shed all the hurt anyone can cause me. To wish that any sort of heartache can be dismissed is not naiive, it is dangerous. Because eventually it can be real. Soon enough there's nothing to understand but that when they leave, they're gone. Then there's the third act. Nothing but still, solid darkness crushing on my chest. Nothing to be explained, it is not the end nor is it the beginning of anything else. It is what it is no matter what I attribute to it. Absolute transparency or complete blindness- take your pick. The core is what it is. This is when my sense of flight was removed and my motor functioning diconnected. I fell and thought of nothing. There is no drug to match. Down there could be my monster or angel just swimming circles- waiting for me to come look at it. I cannot do anything else in either case. What is there is there. Acceptance is eventual. Saved, we can be. It was my father pulling me out those waters and someone else with my father's name another time. Down the line it was people that have felt the rugged textures on me and have kissed my skin. They kept my eyes off the waters and have saved me as a result. But, of course, they leave and come like breaths of air. Now it's easy to stay alive but streiniouous to stop myself from wondering what the bottom feels like. Questions that might never have answers. I accept that my body is always dying. I accept that I might not be fuckable, sexy, sharp, unique intelligent, deep or anything else that is prized by man. I wear my race on, well, my skin. I use it to my advantage and against those that can never see or connect with a person of a different color. It's dumb but it's human. I bind all there is as if I was always under water. My thoughts, as a man of age, is that of current. It is felt. Love. M.A.