Open Water

by Caleb Azumah Nelson

The two of you, like headphone wires tangling, caught up in this something. A happy accident. A messy miracle.

You would soon learn that love made you worry, but it also made you beautiful. Love made you Black, as in, you were most coloured when in her presence. It was not a cause for concern; one must rejoice! You could be yourselves.

It is a strange thing, to desire your best friend; two pairs of hands wandering past boundaries, asking forgiveness rather than permission:

Meeting someone on a summer’s evening is like giving a dead flame new life.

How does one shake off desire? To give it a voice is to sow a seed, knowing that somehow, someway, it will grow. It is to admit and submit to something which is on the outer limits of your understanding.

What is better than believing you are heading towards love?

She reaches up, fingertips grazing the window, as if light is something that can be held.

You don’t tell her that it was there, in the slight pauses, that you were able to breathe, not even realizing you were holding air in, but you were.

the seed you pushed deep into the ground has blossomed in the wrong season. You think of how you will tell this story to those who ask, because there will be questions. You wonder if it felt right will be sufficient. You wonder if the defence of nothing happened will be sufficient.

The night is as warm as her embrace

You don’t always like those you love unconditionally.

Language fails us, and sometimes our parents do too.

Your house is too quiet, or rather it is loud in the absence of others.

You didn’t want to have to think about what was seen when you offered a grin in the corridor; the discrepancy between what they thought they knew and what was true scared you.

Perhaps that is how we should frame this question forever; rather than asking what is your favourite work, let’s ask, what continues to pull you back?

Is that what love is? The feeling of safety? And here you are, safe in her presence, separated only by each other’s silence.

You realize there is a reason clichés exist, and you would happily have your breath taken away, three seconds at a time, maybe more, by this woman.

You fit the profile. You fit the description. You don’t fit in the box but he has squeezed you in.

know. To give desire a voice is to give it a body through which to breathe and live. It is to admit and submit to something which is on the outer limits of your understanding.

That anger which is the result of things unspoken from now and then, of unresolved grief, large and small, of others assuming that he, beautiful Black person in gorgeous Black body, was born violent and dangerous; this assumption, impossible to hide, manifesting in every word and glance and action, and every word and glance and action ingested and internalized, and it’s unfair and unjust, this sort of death – being asked to live so constrained is a death of sorts – so you don’t blame him for the anger, but why did his anger have to find a home in another who looked just like him?

it was more you. It was trauma, yes, but it was you and you were OK with her consuming it.

that walking home in the night worried you sometimes, because you didn’t know which fate would meet you, the one who looked like you or the one who couldn’t see you, or couldn’t see you as you were meant to be seen, or whether you would arrive home without incident, and live to fear another day.

whether it’s possible to do so wholly. You don’t think so. But perhaps in the not knowing comes the knowing, born of an instinctive trust that you both struggle to elucidate or rationalize. It just is.

you realized it was alcohol you were swimming in, not water.

content in the absence of distractions, content in the presence of one another.

To trust is to love and she trusts you.

It’s one thing to be looked at, and another to be seen.

She’s beautiful – subjective, but the bias is inevitable.

She smells like her, which is a cop-out, really, but if pushed, you would say she smells like a place you call home.

You know that to love is both to swim and to drown. You know to love is to be a whole, partial, a joint, a fracture, a heart, a bone. It is to bleed and heal. It is to be in the world, honest. It is to place someone next to your beating heart, in the absolute darkness of your inner, and trust they will hold you close.

You tell her she deserves to be loved in the way you love her, and she starts to cry, quiet as rain.

you pass a police van. They aren’t questioning you or her but glance in your direction. With this act, they confirm what you already know: that your bodies are not your own. You’re scared they will take them back, so you pull down the hood which is shielding you from the cold.

Further reading: jokes at your expense, implying a criminality or lack of intellect; others wanting to co-opt a word they dare not say in your presence, like they have not plucked enough from you; the wearying practice of being looked at, not seen.

You would like to believe the shots will never penetrate. You would like to feel safe.

Tears stream down Tre’s cheeks, meeting at his chin. The policeman doesn’t answer directly, but with his actions he is saying, I am doing this because I can.

Your few days together have been spent doing nothing really, which is something, is an intimacy in itself.

She tells you she loves you and now you know that you don’t have to be the sum of your

less a life lived and more one survived.

You have always wondered under what conditions unconditional love breaks, and you believe that betrayal might be one of them.

You have always thought if you opened your mouth in open water you would drown, but if you didn’t open your mouth you would suffocate. So here you are, drowning.

You’re both enjoying the comfort of each other’s silence. What more is there to say?

If you look closely, you’ll see what she has always seen, what she always will: you.