Into the rolling, frothy crested whitecaps. Away from the safe clutches of the boat, bobbing like a rubber duck, out of place in a place that seems otherworldly. Left hand clenched against my eye mask to keep it securely in place. Right hand over the regulator, my lifeline. Flippers on my feet because evolution was not clever enough to make me a terrestrial and marine mammal. Heavy tank on my back makes a terrific splash as I collide with the surface, the weights in my belt making the fall even shorter. Bubbles surround me, almost like those in a bathtub as a child, but they quickly clear and I see what is below. I realize I have been holding my breath. Inhale. Exhale. Down here, breathing is a conscious act. It’s easy to forget to do because it’s easy to forget you’re human. Every time I take a breath, I feel like Darth Vader as the regulator rattles in my mouth and produces a raspy inhuman sound. I can see coral below, clumps of it, almost like bushes in a garden except not uniformly spaced or clipped for aesthetics. Being at surface level, I can’t see much else, just the general outline. I move around in a circle to glance in all directions, but maneuvering so is not easy to do. It’s not like I’m a dolphin, after all. After jerking around like a foolish fish out of water, I see that there is nothing around me, nothing of interest or concern, except for the dive instructor several feet below me. She gives the sign to ask if everything is ok (a perfect sign) and I reply with the same sign. My vest is puffed up with air, keeping me close to the surface, but it is time to sink. Sink down into the unknown, the dark, where the color spectrum is vastly reduced, red goes first like the bricks in my house, followed by the vivid orange in smog-polluted sunsets, yellow like the fresh fruit resembling apricots only found in Calabria, green like the tennis courts I grew up on, leaving blue behind. The dive instructor gives me a thumbs-down. I empty some air out of my vest and let the weight belt and weights in my pockets do the rest. When my ears start to hurt, I pump some more air back into my vest, and float suspended in space for a few moments, equalizing my ears. This must be what it feels like to be an astronaut floating in blackness, the blackness that is space without the moon in sight. I let the air out again. Down I go. Like the Titanic. Gathering speed, water rushing through my ears, things coming into focus. A school of fish shimmering like a curtain with parrot beaks and stout fins. I add more air. I stop. I hover. The coral is composed of bits resembling upside down pancakes, others flowering plants. Some corals are so oddly-shaped that the only comparison I can make is to something abstract Picasso may have drawn. However, even his imagination may not have been able to stretch so far as to envision something like this. More corals are composed of long noodle-like sticks shooting out, desperate to fill the vastness, to make themselves known, as though advertising to the fish that they are the best shelter available. Beady little black eyes stare back at me, decide in an instant I’m predator not prey, or just that I’m some weird-looking thing better to avoid, and dive out of sight into hidden coral caverns. Down here on the ocean floor, I forget the ocean is vast because everything seems to be right here. I forget about all trivial concerns—what I’m going to do for the rest of the day, how I did on my last test, the latest drama with friends—when a huge nurse shark, maybe eight or nine feet long, darts out of the vast blue all at once and in an instant is in front of me, under me, behind me, and by the time I manage to turn around, gone, concealed by the boundless blue. It is difficult to see far underwater, depending on visibility conditions, and so whenever something appears, it is sudden, it is unexpected, and it is very very close to you. The eight other sharks I saw were lounging about on the sandy parts of the ocean floor devoid of coral. It wasn’t much different from watching my dog fall asleep with her belly up, snoring away. My dive instructor gives me a thumbs up, signalling it’s time. I check my oxygen; I only have a third left. I puff up my vest and mournfully stare below, as the new world I’ve only begun to explore is swallowed by the blue and the ocean appears empty again. But I know the truth.
Bus 161 hisses to a stop and opens its doors. I step on, tap my Summer Student Free Pass on the scanner, and heave into my seat before the bus jerks into motion. Bus 161 is the one with the hard, plastic seats. The ones that stick to the sweat on my thighs that I later have to peel off when I stand up, 45 minutes later, at my stop. It’s gross, but it’s my fault for waking up late and missing Bus 160, which has cushions.
I shift and tuck my knees to my chest.
Houston is hot. This is a thought that is flat and lifeless and sprawls over the armchair in my brain, head tipped back, repeating itself over and over for lack of energy to state anything but the obvious.
If I slump down any lower in my chair, I’ll slip off and melt on the floor. With effort, I scoot back up and lean my head against the window, feeling the vibrations in my teeth.
Outside the view comes and goes in quick swipes. Houston is all highway, a product of urban sprawl. From most places in the city, you can see the wide lanes that stand on massive, concrete legs and criss-cross each other in the sky. Only in a city that doesn’t get snow could you have roads built this high. Right now I’m on top of I-10, an interstate that brushes shoulders-touching past Memorial City Mall in its track downtown. It’s Friday, so the parking lots are packed full with cars prowling the premises for an open spot. Inside, students on break would probably be lining up with their friends to try the new liquid-nitrogen ice-cream shop that just opened its doors. For $8 a scoop it’s ridiculously expensive, laughably so, but the visual of the white fog streaming out of the silver-chrome mixers, captured through flattering filters and posted on social media, is tempting enough to warrant a pause.
I blink, and the mall passes by in a blur. It’s replaced by a repetitive stretch of phone towers and nondescript buildings, tan and unoffending. There’s a white smudge on the window now from where my forehead was pressed, and there’s probably a matching red mark on my skin if I check. It feels a bit warm. I rub it with my fingers to make the blood flow properly and lean back, digging my sneakers into the edge of my seat and opening the rips at the bottom.
It’s only been a year, but they’re already falling apart. Payless and their scam shoes. I don’t even exercise. I stick my finger into the space where the rubber sole peeled away and wiggle it around. It goes up to my first knuckle, so it’s not that bad. Maybe on the bus back home, I’ll show my mom and make my case for a new pair. Ones without suspiciously generous discounts, this time. It could be a back to school gift.
Can you see auras? I ask becuase you use colors a lot, and seem to have a firm grasp on people and how their energy affects their environment. The ability to put it into writing without being straight forward and corny is beyond me as I write this. Bravo!
Six pairs of children eyes stare at me from the wall too blue to be dusted off. On the right, the blond one is not much older than I was when I first broke my teeth, but I cannot see past his pouted lips and loud attitude to confirm relatability. Next to him live the twins. Dark in matter and soul, they question what led me to this queer bedroom in the heart of the mountains. Alone, I am joined by two long windows on white wooden frames, South and West, from whom I get enough light to wake up in the morning, but not enough to compel me to brave the cold out of bed. On the first night I stared at the white ceiling and pretended to fall asleep, they creaked harmoniously, albeit syncopated to the rusty heater on the carpeted floor. I stare at that same ceiling now and wonder what has changed since I left home. As I soak in the hues of blue and white around me, the children stare at me once more. I wonder what their names are—were?—, if they have names at all, and if I would feel warmer if I knew how to call them. I baptize the short one to the left Joel for no particular reason other than compensating for his stern regard. I imagine running into him at a crowded train platform—non-descript, where all faces are equally anonymous and absorbed in their business. We brush past each other, lock eyes for a single second—where is your mom? Are her eyes as deep and piercingly brown as yours? Does her body crave containment as much as yours does freedom? I can’t know.
My mind wanders off. I lay in bed and again I stare at the ceiling hoping to evade his ever-creeping brown eyes, and I stare until all the white becomes canvas for imagination and the half-lit coatrack becomes your silhouette. I have been waiting for a couple hours now. I pace around the room and sometimes I feel the seclusion liberates me, but then I am too often reminded of how it feels like a can of sardines. I stare at the white ceiling again, but this time I let you go, and nest blanketed with the intoxicating scent of your sandalwood perfume and the tender touch of the scars you left on my skin. This is fine, I tell myself. There is nothing to this moment but to wait. Wait for things to get better, wait for you to text me, wait for something to happen, just as I waited for you to say you needed me. For too long. It did not have to be perfect, I know, it just had to be. Now, it cannot any longer. It cannot as you left me on the platform, as your eyes were Joel’s and I was the mother who ached for losing you, as the creaking whiteboards whispered me the things I wish I hadn’t learnt.
I stare at my phone over and over and over again in the slim hope the dim-red colours of the background could change upon insistence. I look back at our moments of being; the silly ones, the pressing ones, the aching ones, too. I would lie if I told you that seeing those purple lights flicker in your room after the first time we split, even if from a safe distant, did not send me down the rabbit hole of wanting you back. Across from those three whitened and leafless birches, I saw the stones take on different shapes as the wind brushed past my tears. Even now as I stare at the blank around me, I reminisce that awkward evening when the birds on the green wallpaper could not sing, but still we filled the room with laughter and warmth.
Still, I know that can be no more. So, I wait, and I wait forever resigned to knowing that even as I do everything I must, crave, and need, it is waiting for you that brings alight the firefly wildfire within my chest. Uneasy, I lie aware that blue walls, children, and somehow fate will bind my every moment to the three letters in your name. But it is late now. My eyes—and even the children’s if I squint—give up their stubbornness. As the dark encroaches, I take in the dust and shaded hues of crinkling wood until I become them: would you miss me more if I were just another object in your waiting room?
I jump.
Into the rolling, frothy crested whitecaps. Away from the safe clutches of the boat, bobbing like a rubber duck, out of place in a place that seems otherworldly. Left hand clenched against my eye mask to keep it securely in place. Right hand over the regulator, my lifeline. Flippers on my feet because evolution was not clever enough to make me a terrestrial and marine mammal. Heavy tank on my back makes a terrific splash as I collide with the surface, the weights in my belt making the fall even shorter. Bubbles surround me, almost like those in a bathtub as a child, but they quickly clear and I see what is below. I realize I have been holding my breath. Inhale. Exhale. Down here, breathing is a conscious act. It’s easy to forget to do because it’s easy to forget you’re human. Every time I take a breath, I feel like Darth Vader as the regulator rattles in my mouth and produces a raspy inhuman sound. I can see coral below, clumps of it, almost like bushes in a garden except not uniformly spaced or clipped for aesthetics. Being at surface level, I can’t see much else, just the general outline. I move around in a circle to glance in all directions, but maneuvering so is not easy to do. It’s not like I’m a dolphin, after all. After jerking around like a foolish fish out of water, I see that there is nothing around me, nothing of interest or concern, except for the dive instructor several feet below me. She gives the sign to ask if everything is ok (a perfect sign) and I reply with the same sign. My vest is puffed up with air, keeping me close to the surface, but it is time to sink. Sink down into the unknown, the dark, where the color spectrum is vastly reduced, red goes first like the bricks in my house, followed by the vivid orange in smog-polluted sunsets, yellow like the fresh fruit resembling apricots only found in Calabria, green like the tennis courts I grew up on, leaving blue behind. The dive instructor gives me a thumbs-down. I empty some air out of my vest and let the weight belt and weights in my pockets do the rest. When my ears start to hurt, I pump some more air back into my vest, and float suspended in space for a few moments, equalizing my ears. This must be what it feels like to be an astronaut floating in blackness, the blackness that is space without the moon in sight. I let the air out again. Down I go. Like the Titanic. Gathering speed, water rushing through my ears, things coming into focus. A school of fish shimmering like a curtain with parrot beaks and stout fins. I add more air. I stop. I hover. The coral is composed of bits resembling upside down pancakes, others flowering plants. Some corals are so oddly-shaped that the only comparison I can make is to something abstract Picasso may have drawn. However, even his imagination may not have been able to stretch so far as to envision something like this. More corals are composed of long noodle-like sticks shooting out, desperate to fill the vastness, to make themselves known, as though advertising to the fish that they are the best shelter available. Beady little black eyes stare back at me, decide in an instant I’m predator not prey, or just that I’m some weird-looking thing better to avoid, and dive out of sight into hidden coral caverns. Down here on the ocean floor, I forget the ocean is vast because everything seems to be right here. I forget about all trivial concerns—what I’m going to do for the rest of the day, how I did on my last test, the latest drama with friends—when a huge nurse shark, maybe eight or nine feet long, darts out of the vast blue all at once and in an instant is in front of me, under me, behind me, and by the time I manage to turn around, gone, concealed by the boundless blue. It is difficult to see far underwater, depending on visibility conditions, and so whenever something appears, it is sudden, it is unexpected, and it is very very close to you. The eight other sharks I saw were lounging about on the sandy parts of the ocean floor devoid of coral. It wasn’t much different from watching my dog fall asleep with her belly up, snoring away. My dive instructor gives me a thumbs up, signalling it’s time. I check my oxygen; I only have a third left. I puff up my vest and mournfully stare below, as the new world I’ve only begun to explore is swallowed by the blue and the ocean appears empty again. But I know the truth.
“In Transit”
Bus 161 hisses to a stop and opens its doors. I step on, tap my Summer Student Free Pass on the scanner, and heave into my seat before the bus jerks into motion. Bus 161 is the one with the hard, plastic seats. The ones that stick to the sweat on my thighs that I later have to peel off when I stand up, 45 minutes later, at my stop. It’s gross, but it’s my fault for waking up late and missing Bus 160, which has cushions.
I shift and tuck my knees to my chest.
Houston is hot. This is a thought that is flat and lifeless and sprawls over the armchair in my brain, head tipped back, repeating itself over and over for lack of energy to state anything but the obvious.
If I slump down any lower in my chair, I’ll slip off and melt on the floor. With effort, I scoot back up and lean my head against the window, feeling the vibrations in my teeth.
Outside the view comes and goes in quick swipes. Houston is all highway, a product of urban sprawl. From most places in the city, you can see the wide lanes that stand on massive, concrete legs and criss-cross each other in the sky. Only in a city that doesn’t get snow could you have roads built this high. Right now I’m on top of I-10, an interstate that brushes shoulders-touching past Memorial City Mall in its track downtown. It’s Friday, so the parking lots are packed full with cars prowling the premises for an open spot. Inside, students on break would probably be lining up with their friends to try the new liquid-nitrogen ice-cream shop that just opened its doors. For $8 a scoop it’s ridiculously expensive, laughably so, but the visual of the white fog streaming out of the silver-chrome mixers, captured through flattering filters and posted on social media, is tempting enough to warrant a pause.
I blink, and the mall passes by in a blur. It’s replaced by a repetitive stretch of phone towers and nondescript buildings, tan and unoffending. There’s a white smudge on the window now from where my forehead was pressed, and there’s probably a matching red mark on my skin if I check. It feels a bit warm. I rub it with my fingers to make the blood flow properly and lean back, digging my sneakers into the edge of my seat and opening the rips at the bottom.
It’s only been a year, but they’re already falling apart. Payless and their scam shoes. I don’t even exercise. I stick my finger into the space where the rubber sole peeled away and wiggle it around. It goes up to my first knuckle, so it’s not that bad. Maybe on the bus back home, I’ll show my mom and make my case for a new pair. Ones without suspiciously generous discounts, this time. It could be a back to school gift.
Can you see auras? I ask becuase you use colors a lot, and seem to have a firm grasp on people and how their energy affects their environment. The ability to put it into writing without being straight forward and corny is beyond me as I write this. Bravo!
“In Your Waiting Room”
Six pairs of children eyes stare at me from the wall too blue to be dusted off. On the right, the blond one is not much older than I was when I first broke my teeth, but I cannot see past his pouted lips and loud attitude to confirm relatability. Next to him live the twins. Dark in matter and soul, they question what led me to this queer bedroom in the heart of the mountains. Alone, I am joined by two long windows on white wooden frames, South and West, from whom I get enough light to wake up in the morning, but not enough to compel me to brave the cold out of bed. On the first night I stared at the white ceiling and pretended to fall asleep, they creaked harmoniously, albeit syncopated to the rusty heater on the carpeted floor. I stare at that same ceiling now and wonder what has changed since I left home. As I soak in the hues of blue and white around me, the children stare at me once more. I wonder what their names are—were?—, if they have names at all, and if I would feel warmer if I knew how to call them. I baptize the short one to the left Joel for no particular reason other than compensating for his stern regard. I imagine running into him at a crowded train platform—non-descript, where all faces are equally anonymous and absorbed in their business. We brush past each other, lock eyes for a single second—where is your mom? Are her eyes as deep and piercingly brown as yours? Does her body crave containment as much as yours does freedom? I can’t know.
My mind wanders off. I lay in bed and again I stare at the ceiling hoping to evade his ever-creeping brown eyes, and I stare until all the white becomes canvas for imagination and the half-lit coatrack becomes your silhouette. I have been waiting for a couple hours now. I pace around the room and sometimes I feel the seclusion liberates me, but then I am too often reminded of how it feels like a can of sardines. I stare at the white ceiling again, but this time I let you go, and nest blanketed with the intoxicating scent of your sandalwood perfume and the tender touch of the scars you left on my skin. This is fine, I tell myself. There is nothing to this moment but to wait. Wait for things to get better, wait for you to text me, wait for something to happen, just as I waited for you to say you needed me. For too long. It did not have to be perfect, I know, it just had to be. Now, it cannot any longer. It cannot as you left me on the platform, as your eyes were Joel’s and I was the mother who ached for losing you, as the creaking whiteboards whispered me the things I wish I hadn’t learnt.
I stare at my phone over and over and over again in the slim hope the dim-red colours of the background could change upon insistence. I look back at our moments of being; the silly ones, the pressing ones, the aching ones, too. I would lie if I told you that seeing those purple lights flicker in your room after the first time we split, even if from a safe distant, did not send me down the rabbit hole of wanting you back. Across from those three whitened and leafless birches, I saw the stones take on different shapes as the wind brushed past my tears. Even now as I stare at the blank around me, I reminisce that awkward evening when the birds on the green wallpaper could not sing, but still we filled the room with laughter and warmth.
Still, I know that can be no more. So, I wait, and I wait forever resigned to knowing that even as I do everything I must, crave, and need, it is waiting for you that brings alight the firefly wildfire within my chest. Uneasy, I lie aware that blue walls, children, and somehow fate will bind my every moment to the three letters in your name. But it is late now. My eyes—and even the children’s if I squint—give up their stubbornness. As the dark encroaches, I take in the dust and shaded hues of crinkling wood until I become them: would you miss me more if I were just another object in your waiting room?