Open Water

by Caleb Azumah Nelson

There was an inevitability about their road towards one another which encouraged meandering along the route. Zadie Smith

You would soon learn that love made you worry, but it also made you beautiful.

It is a strange thing, to desire your best friend; two pairs of hands wandering past boundaries, asking forgiveness rather than permission: ‘Is this OK?’ coming a fraction after the motion. Sometimes, you cry in the dark.

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.

Besides, sometimes, to resolve desire, it’s better to let the thing bloom. To feel this thing, to let it catch you unaware, to hold onto the ache. What is better than believing you are heading towards love?

You don’t always like those you love unconditionally. Language fails us, always. Flimsy things, these words. And everything flounders in the face of real gratitude, which even a thank you cannot surmise, but a thank you to her also.

Language fails us, and sometimes our parents do too. We all fail each other, sometimes small, sometimes big, but look, when we love we trust, and when we fail, we fracture that joint.

Trauma makes you considerate.

She wasn’t heavy but there was a weight to her which didn’t match the lean figure you studied in your kitchen. Which is to say there was more life in your hands than you expected.

You want to tell her that you miss her mother, to confess that you lost your God in the days your grandma lost her body and gained her spirit, to tell her you couldn’t face your own pain until now.

Under what conditions does the uncontainable stay contained? Things unsaid don’t often remain so.

‘You don’t call me. I never hear from you. I don’t have long left. You have to call me more often. I could go any day now.’ ‘OK,’ you said and, dashing out of your room, returned the phone to your father. Coming back to your room, the shame you were experiencing gained distinction. He was right. You didn’t call him. He was in his eighties and, after several strokes, required assistance to live. In your kitchen, you wonder what your tears are for: the loss of him or the loss of yourself ?

To be you is to apologize and often that apology comes in the form of suppression. That suppression is indiscriminate. That suppression knows not when it will spill.

You wonder what it means to know someone, and 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 feel her turn beside you. You wonder how long this moment could stretch for, and how much it could contain: you, her, the soft rush of cars speeding in the darkness, the gaze, seeing each other here, her heartbeat near audible, before she says, ‘I love you, you know?’ She has swum out into open water, and it is not long before you join her. You take but a moment before saying, ‘I love you too.’

It’s not long before you’re giggling as you fumble in the dark with your best friend. She lies beside you once more and amidst the laughter, a short panic, which you thrust away in bursts, kissing the darkness, pushing each other, lips meeting, urgent. The heat has broken, and you know what you feel is the result. You’re swimming with her, holding hands in the dark with your best friend, taking large, sure strokes. You had no intention of this happening, but it’s better this way.

You said to trust is not to fill time, but you would like to say to trust is to fill that time with each other. The heart does the same, in the immense darkness of the body, filling with blood, clenching it out, tight as stiff fist with nothing in hand. You fill time, clutching onto it as it leaves you. Clutching after each other in the moments you must separate.

There’s no solace in the shade. Let yourself be heard and hear her words. Have faith. Suck at the snake’s bite, spit out the venom at your feet. Gaze at the fading scar but do not dwell. Do not hide but do not dwell. There’s no solace in the shade. Let yourself be heard and hear her words. Have faith.

Two have become one but a hot blade has been taken to your skin and you have to wear these stories like scars. You want to wash them clean, and watch as she swims in the bath, slender limbs loose in the water. Love as a form of meditation; reaching towards a more honest expression of self. Remember that your body has memory. Scars do not always blemish. You kiss them and call her pretty. You’re always surprised by the substance of her under your fingers. You want to lie beside her in the darkness and whisper your truths to her: To my queen, forever is a mighty long time, but I knew you before I met you, so now we’re free. You didn’t have a home coming into this world, but you’re home now. You’re home now.

Find a place you can call home. This isn’t it. It’s hard to just be in this place. So much goes on that you don’t even realize until you realize, you know what I mean? Go somewhere you can be free. Where you don’t have to think too tough about what you do before you do it. Find a place you can call home.’

If you give a name to this day does that mean this life is yours?

You want to lie in darkness beside your partner and talk death like you have nothing to fear. You do not want to die before you can live.

This goes on until they grow tired, they grow bored, they lose focus, there is a call somewhere else. Just doing our jobs, they say. You’re free to go now, they say. ‘Are we ever?’ Leon asks.

There’s an anger you have. It is cool and blue and unshifting. You wish it was red so it would explode from your very being, explode and be done with, but you are too used to cooling this anger, so it remains. And what are you supposed to do with this anger? What are you supposed to do with this feeling? Some of you like to forget. Most of you live daily in a state of delusion because how else is one meant to live? In fear? Some days, this anger creates an ache so bad you struggle to move. Some days, the anger makes you feel ugly and undeserving of love and deserving of all that comes to you. You know the image is false, but it’s all you can see of yourself, this ugliness, and so you hide your whole self away because you haven’t worked out how to emerge from your own anger, how to dip into your own peace. You hide your whole self away because sometimes you forget you haven’t done anything wrong. Sometimes you forget there’s nothing in your pockets. Sometimes you forget that to be you is to be unseen and unheard, or it is to be seen and heard in ways you did not ask for. Sometimes you forget to be you is to be a Black body, and not much else.

‘There’s nothing.’ ‘It doesn’t sound like nothing.’ ‘There’s nothing.’ ‘You’re not being fair. I’m really here just trying to check you’re OK because I care and all I’m getting is nothing, nothing, nothing.’ ‘I don’t know what to say to you.’ ‘It feels like you’re pushing me away. Like there’s something wrong and you just won’t tell me. It’s felt like this for a while.’ ‘There’s nothing.’ ‘You’re not being honest with me. I can’t do this if you won’t be honest with me.’ ‘There’s nothing. Can’t you just drop it?’ ‘Fine. Whatever.’ On the line, static; the dam has burst, and anything else said will be drowned by the sound of rushing water. And like that, a joint, fractured, broken. The line goes dead and the ocean has stilled.

You don’t want to admit that he too knew he had been marked for destruction, that he had spent a life so close to death that it was less a life lived and more one survived.

You want to tell her there are some things you won’t heal from, and there is no shame in your hurt. You want to tell her that in trying to be honest here, you dug until shovel met bone, and you kept going. You want to tell her it hurt.

Multiple truths do exist, and you do not have to be the sum of your traumas.

You came here, to the page, to ask for forgiveness. You came here to tell her you are sorry that you wouldn’t let her hold you in this open water. You came here to tell her how selfish it was to let yourself drown.

You cry in darkness. Death is not always physical, and crying is not always an expression of pain.

You came here to speak of what it means to love your best friend. A direct gaze. An honest man. You’re searching for words, but none will do. Ask: if flexing is being able to say the most in the least amount of words, is there a greater flex than love? The gaze requires no words at all; it is an honest meeting. You came here to ask if she will look at you, while you tell her this story.

It is one thing to be looked at, and another to be seen. You’re asking to see him.

You’ve been wondering about your own relationship to open water. You’ve been wondering about the trauma and how it always finds its way to the surface, floating in the ocean. You’ve been wondering about how to protect that trauma from consumption. You’ve been wondering about departing, about being elsewhere. 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 came here to ask for forgiveness. You came here to tell her you are sorry that you wouldn’t let her hold you in this open water. You came here to tell her the truth.

Under what conditions does unconditional love break? She cried for you yesterday. She has decided to submit to her tears rather than understand them. It’s been a year at this point, but she knows she will always cry for you.

The thing that undid her was the memory of being seen.

She glances towards you and pulls her camera out of her bag. You joked as a photographer that you spent time chasing light, but you should’ve also said you bent darkness as well. She trains her lens on you and holds her breath before depressing the shutter. When the photo is developed, she’s sure, if you look closely, you’ll see the shadows cast across your skin, the eyes both seeing her and seeing the world, the honesty resting calmly on your features. If you look closely, you might see a tear making a journey from eye to cheek, as you cry for her. If you look closely, you’ll see what she has always seen, what she always will: you.