twisted beautiful things

xvii. water

xvii. water

'well i could see how you would be attracted to me

me, an ashtray for your habits

you, a moon to my sea

well me, the juice to your squeeze

and you a stone i could keep in the best room of the palace 

and pretend it could weep'

(kehlani)

>>>>

kennedy

Water is healing.

It's why people swim, it's why some people thrive by the ocean, it's why it is recommended for aches and hurts and all kinds of pains.

It is vital. It keeps us alive.

The smooth ribbons of aquamarine filter through my pruney fingers as my body glides through the pooskinl. The serenity of the early morning quiet somehow fills the cracks in my soul. The same cracks that have been letting dust come in.

And even though it only lasts a moment, I soak it in as much as I can, like a sponge. Trying to ignore the fact that there is a lonely world waiting for me the moment my head breaches the surface.

This morning I'd woken up with a parched throat and a sandpaper voice. Naturally, waking up in a puddle of cold sweat, I craved the feeling of a cold cold shower. But once I stepped foot in my cramped shower, the walls of my throat squeezed and I forgot how to breathe until I stepped back out.

So I ended up here.

The outdoor pool at the rec center is ginormous, giving me plenty of room to float around. A soft breeze runs chills down my arms, raising the hairs from my tan skin.

It's not even eight in the morning; I'd spent most of the night tossing and turning, ears perked up for any slight noise.

I've tried throwing the portrait away. I've tried burning it. I've tried dumping water on Pine trees clothed in olive green leaves and sharp pine needles sway gently in the sigh of the early morning breath of the earth.

I have spent the majority of my time here the past few days.

The painting won't remove from my wall, as if some spiritual glue held it from the frame to the wall. I've tried ruining it-dumping water on it, slashing it with a letter opener, and it always comes out unscathed, as if it was meant to live on forever. As if the eyes of the haunted child in the picture were trying to tell me that they will live on forever.

But the fact that it is indestructible and refuses to leave, that is what makes me irresolute to brush it off as some nightmare.

I feel her glowing gray eyes on me each time I step in my room, her weeping reverberating against these empty walls when the sun is down, haunting my dreams that are overcrowded with images of buildings and bodies going up in flames and smoke, of Elsie's body falling apart each time she moved as a testament to the wounds she'd endured when she chose to leap.