Open Water

by Caleb Azumah Nelson

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 get the feeling he feels how you do sometimes: like you’re bobbing and weaving in the ocean and it’s a fight you didn’t sign up for. You don’t want to go under. You can swim in water, but the oil will kill you. You don’t want to die. This is basic and audacious, but you want to lay claim to it while you still can.

You do not want to die before you can live. This is basic and audacious, but you want to lay claim to it while you still can.

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.

You decide freedom might be a narrative. Freedom might be in the place beyond the fence. Freedom might be inviting others over the boundary.

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

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.