Echos

Part 1: The Snake - Salem

The snake swirled itself around the inside of my abdomen, its tail dragging down my spine, its head protruding out of my bellybutton, like a bee from a blooming flower.

It looks up at me with its small, piercing black eyes, and with that I said goodbye.

I pulled it out of me, before I pulled it out of you, is that selfish?
I pulled and pulled and pulled on the oil-slick colored rope till it came to a large pile in my hands. I gathered it up and poured it into the river, so it would be free and very far from me, and as I turned to walk away I tripped and fell into the sand face first.

I pick my head up and see you have fallen too.
We laugh as we realize the serpent has still got its tail entangled within our toes, and then it begins to pull us into the water. As we struggle for life our legs and then our arms turn to snakes.
We flail and slither and hiss in place til we find each other's hands again and realize that we are safe, calming our minds enough to stand up and reclaim the sand as a safe space.

We sit under a yellow and white striped umbrella, with our legs and fingers intertwined watching the waves rise and fall, as I watch your head do the same in laughter.
I smile and this time I'm not sure what we are laughing at, I just know we are finally free after all. I look up, clear blue skies all day until now, a light fog layering over everything, at the fall of the morning star-

"Lemi! Did you hear me? I asked if you will pray for me." Sage proclaimed with a pout, nudging me out of my daydream. "My cramps are just so bad today, the pain is too much. I'm starting to get a little scared. I'm sorry, I know you had a long day at work." You look off camera awaiting my annoyance.

"I promise I heard you, that's what I was just thinking about. Praying your pain away, and maybe mine too." I say, as I try to pull my gaze away from the flame dancing in my lap, and back into your eyes. "You have nothing to be sorry for, I'm sorry, you have my full attention."

You look at me as though I'm impossible, and a lot of the time, I feel the same about you. I wish we weren't both so new at receiving love and not just giving it.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," they glow at me, "I think your spell is beginning to work! Could you do it for my lower back too?"
We giggle at the possibility of us, ourselves, being magic, being infinitely stronger than we could even possibly conceive.

The FaceTime audio breaks up slightly, and the video begins to blur, but it always comes back eventually. I'm sitting on wrinkled sheets atop my bed, still in my work clothes: a chemical-stained, baby blue t-shirt and black shorts that reek of sunscreen. Being a lifeguard is not as glamorous as I thought it would be, but my locations vary between a water park and indoor gym pools so I'm not sure what I was expecting.
The salted caramel candle that Sage bought me for Christmas rests in my lap, warming up the whole room. I breathe in deep through my nose and pull my locs into a bun on the top of my head so it's resting out of my face.
Although the screen appears to be frozen–locked onto a moment of them mid-sentence with her eyes half closed–I can hear the sound quality beginning to return. They are seriously beautiful, seriously goofy sometimes, but the most beautiful person I have ever met, in their soul and in the way their smile reaches their eyes, slowly and then unabashed. Bold, inspiring and enchanting; are words they would probably never use to describe themselves but are the most accurate words I can find.

"Look at the sunset! Look out your window, baby, it's so beautiful."

I turn my view to a different sky, and we watch the sun set, together, just the way it did in my daydream.

***

Most of the beige and red specked floor tiles in my school were big enough that if you were about average height, you could walk on them without stepping on the lines in between.