Open Water

by Caleb Azumah Nelson

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.

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,

The songs are full of nostalgia, which is to say they are full of mourning; one remembers that which came before, often with a fond sadness, a want to return, despite knowing to return to a memory is to morph it, to warp it. Every time you remember something, the memory weakens, as you’re remembering the last recollection, rather than the memory itself. Nothing can remain intact. Still, it does not stop you wanting, does not stop you longing.

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.’

you are determined to enjoy these months, leaving the house not knowing what the day might bring you, where possibilities seem infinite, where beauty and joy, too, can be endless.

You while away the evening together, doing nothing really, which is something, is an intimacy in itself. To not fill your time with someone is to trust, and to trust is to love.

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

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.

It’s one thing to be looked at, and another to be seen; you’re scared that she might not just see your beauty, but your ugly too.

she smells like a place you call home.

You are ending the summer, wondering how it is possible to miss someone before they have gone.

You have never loved from a distance, but then you have never known love like this. You want to tell yourself, and her, that it will be OK, that nothing will change, but you don’t know.

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. To love is to trust, to trust is to have faith. How else are you meant to love?

She tells you she loves you and now you know that you don’t have to be the sum of your traumas, that multiple truths exist, that you love her too.

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.

Sometimes, it hurts to be me. Sometimes, it hurts to be us. You know?’

You do not want to die before you can live.

when they, the police, are close, you lose your names and you have all done wrong.

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.

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 ache. You ache all over. You are aching to be you, but you’re scared of what it means to do so.

To love someone like that, to know how beautiful and wholesome and healing such a love is, and to turn your back on it required no strength at all. You have always wondered under what conditions unconditional love breaks, and you believe that betrayal might be one of them.

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. You want to tell her that you have stopped trying to forget that feeling, that anger, that ugly, and instead have accepted it as part of you, along with your joy, your beauty, your light. Multiple truths do exist, and you do not have to be the sum of your traumas.

It’s been a year at this point, but she knows she will always cry for you.