Freshwater

by Akwaeke Emezi

We were her and yet not. We were not conscious but we were alive—in fact, the main problem was that we were a distinct we instead of being fully and just her.

Humans often pray and forget what their mouths can do, forget that every ear is listening, that when you direct your longing to the gods, they can take that personally.

All water is connected.

Think of brief insanities that are in you, not just the ones that blossomed as you grew into taller, more sinful versions of yourself, but the ones you were born with, tucked behind your liver.

The first madness was that we were born, that they stuffed a god into a bag of skin.

The gods do not care. It is not them, after all, that will pay the cost.

But they pull us, the humans, they draw us close. They’re so turgid with potential and yet so empty, with spaces under their skins and inside their marrow, so much room for us to yawn into existence. They can be ridden, marked, anointed, fucked, then, sometimes, left.

And while he loves humans (he was born of one, lived and died as one), what they forget is that he loves them as a god does, which is to say, with a taste for suffering.

The world in my head has been far more real than the one outside—maybe that’s the exact definition of madness, come to think of it.

If you ever need to take a break from this world, call me. I will come to you in a heartbeat and we will steal time.”

With Ewan, they just listened to music and talked about their childhoods, and it was all nice and innocent if you forget that they were humans who had hearts.

There was bound to be desire lying under his hatred—there always is.

this body was ours, not hers; this girl was ours, not hers, she had to understand where her jurisdiction ended and how pushing further was blasphemy.

Yshwa, I am tired of pain. It’s just easier to focus on love and an existence outside this world. At least that feels like freedom.

Understand this if you understand nothing: it is a powerful thing to be seen.

Ah, we have always claimed to rule the Ada, but here is the truth: she was easier to control when she thought she was weak. Here is another truth: she is not ours, we are hers.

She was scarred, yes, gouged in places even. But she was—she has always been—a terrifyingly beautiful thing. If you ever saw her at her fullest, you would understand—power becomes the child. She is heavy and unbearably light, still her mother’s hatchling. Think of her when the moon is rich, flatulent, bursting with pus and light, repugnant with strength.

Sometimes, you recognize truth because it destroys you for a bit.

Find your tail, she told me, and her words slithered. They were silver and cool. Her voice came with meaning. I had forgotten that if she is a python, then so am I. If I don’t know where my tail is, then I don’t know anything. I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know where the ground is, or where the sky is, or if I’m pointing away from my head. The meaning was clear. Curve in on yourself.

To write into that space was the only way I knew how to confront it, how to start wrangling a semblance of peace through the storm I’d been hiding in my head,

Even when seized by a thousand fears, we can make strange and wonderful things simply for the sake of the strange and the wonderful, we can create without permission, we can write into the unknown.