The Deep

by Rivers Solomon

She had no wish to transform trauma to performance, to parade what she’d come to think of as her own tragedies for entertainment.

That was all remembering was. Prodding them lest they try to move on from things that should not be moved on from. Forgetting was not the same as healing.

Oh, was this pain real? It didn’t even belong to her. Was there anything about her that wasn’t a performance for others’ gratification?

“Remember how deep we go.”

“Remember,” she said. This was their story. This was where they began. Drowning.

We must each be where we belong.” “What is belonging?” we ask. She says, “Where loneliness ends.”

Perhaps it would’ve been better never to have understood, to have stayed in that moment full of possibility.

The deep will be our sibling, our parent, our relief from endless solitude.

We don’t close our eyes. It will be upon us in seconds. We are not afraid. We welcome it. This is belonging.

Little zoti aleyu. Strange fish.