lake lessons
ready?
do you wanna go together? come, lets hold hands.
no?
alright.
all that matters is that you do it, okay?
.. are you sure you don’t wanna do it together?
alright.. !
each of your feet slapped flat and hard against the white dusty cliff until your skinny frame shot itself into the sky. we were half naked and suspended above an unfamiliar lake somewhere in texas. well, now it was just me. night was rolling in slow as all hell. the habitual hit from the one hitter didn’t soothe my nervousness. to be straightforward, tossing my body into the abyss is not my thing. i like the ground. i like the stability. planes make me cry. roller-coasters make me cringe. i like to just sit and watch the sky roll over the lake, not risk being harmed by one of its unseen watery perils..
an oval of water burst upward from where you carved into the lake- the explosive hiss of unhappy water yanking me from my brain. sheepishly i gazed over the edge to see what became of you. it appeared you had survived- treading water with one eye locked in an accidental wink, peering up at me. you smiled big and echoed gentle encouragements into the cove below in a soft-spoken southern accent. the hair on your head matted itself to your forehead in strangely stylish curls. “1,2,3, fuck it! ”. you kept spitting out deliveries of lake water between wide toothy grins.
minutes were passing and i had hardly moved. talking to myself anxiously, trying still to remain some degree of coolcalmandcomposed while facing these subconscious shadows publicly. i felt sickened by the symbolism of my inner demons confronting me with such an unoriginal yet classic scene. your smile was fading gradually due to your legs growing tired, even though you didn’t let on.
fear, my constant constriction. my choke up. my backout. my way out. but this time i knew the only way out was through. my feet betrayed my brain and thrust me forward and up and off.
i had toyed with some ideas about what form i’d take prior to jumping, but none of them panned out. i claimed an awkward and ungraceful pencil dive and held my nose prematurely. the fall was eternal. the seconds were looping. i could hear everything for a long time. your holler bounced off the walls of the cave. my body heaved into the oblivion of the luke warm lake.
when i emerged i was concerned with my makeup. a tell tale sign i need to work on my priorities. you were there with me, once i smeared the uninvited water from my eyes, grinning and congratulating me. i felt silly getting praise for something so seemingly simple as letting go..
you held me near in the dark choppy water as we clung to the cove walls of the cliff. color flood my face. maybe adrenaline feels a lot like love.
i finally felt close to you.
i wanted to stay down there a little longer. where there were no distractions. no phones no cigarettes no coughing no traffic talk no sleep no sex no drugs no radio. we couldn’t hide from each other. i wanted to stay and swim and look into you, unabashedly wet and stoned and well-intentioned. graze pale loving bodies beneath the green hue of the lake. but you grinned, cleared your throat and talked to yourself about your footing as we sought a way to scale the rocks back up.
i’m sure i could have said something.
told you how i felt.
but that fear thing.
