Underwater

Days pass, run, fly past, tear at my limbs and demand things of me. I fall asleep in nightmares, and forget them as soon as I jolt awake. Heatwaves pummel the city, tsunamis of tumble dry heat, pools of sweat at every street corner, conditioner air scratching my throat and I run so slowly in the morning sun. I book another ticket out of the city.

When at last everything stops, I tumble into the proverbial grass of my livingroom couch, lie in apathy for a full day staring into high definitioned nothingness, feel myself falling out of my own hands, remember that this is what the centrifuge does and the answers evade me. I stare a little longer, set an alarm, write a to do list that only aims to remind me who I am. I begin to check it off.

And then, at last, a voice returns to me. Scrambled at first, rushing through the list, rushing through the day, it is distorted and distant, I only catch it in brief pauses between the traffic, but it comes back slow and steady like the tide until it is unmistakably here. On my screen, I look out a hundred other windows, find connections and distance all in one, look out my own window and remember I am, I am, I am, I look at my fingertips and see a thousand unwritten stories lay themselves out and begin to speak. The sun sets over a heatwave. A ticket lies in my inbox. I am, I am, I am. I disappear, sometimes, I fall into tangled pieces, but I always come back.

I'm always here, in the end.