Amphibian
You’ve allowed me to tread the outer circles of your life, only to create a ripple from the inside that would push me away. For a moment, I tried to keep my balance, confident that since I have been here over and over again in my life, I have already mastered how to create friction in even the smoothest of surfaces.
But there came a point when your ripples turned to waves, then to tsunamis, and I am no expert in swimming. I know the feeling of drowning but that does not mean I know how to swim back to the open air. Survival, for me, is not always finding my way up but forcing myself to blend in. So I began slicing the sides of my neck to make room for gills.
Slowly, the water from your ocean entered my body and I thought, there I was, finally consuming you, letting myself become a part of you through the impossibilities and limitations. But you weren’t impossible and limited for nothing, and you eventually became too much for me to take in. That not even my newly acquired skill to breathe underwater could make me survive the way you, the ocean, cradled my body – rough, hard, violent, impatient, unloved.
I used to wonder if a fish could drown in the vastness of the ocean. I found it illogical if it could, knowing that every depth, every trench is its home. But at that moment when all I could taste was your rage, I was able to conclude that if a fish would die, it is most likely because it allowed itself to drown.
While I would have wanted the same fate for myself, I know that you wouldn’t want to be tainted by my blood. And so, in an alternative form of surrendering, I let myself be brought to the shore by your continuous rage, continuously pushing me until I reached the shore.
From where I am now standing, you – a beautiful ocean – look so calm, and still, very inviting, tempting, as if I haven’t learned anything yet. Maybe I haven’t.
Maybe, one day, I will try again. Yes, you have tried to drown me. Yes, you have rejected me. But not even the earth’s 70% can extinguish the burning sensation of your lips against mine.
And while I stand here day after day, with burnt skin and dry mouth, I will still look at you, hoping one day, you will once again allow me tread the outer circles of your life without any ripple to push me away.











