27 September 2016

In dance we are dancing to the song Medicine. In Contemporary Literature we read Black Man White Woman in a Dark Green Rowboat. I was thinking about these two things today and how it applies to my current feelings.

It's a new day, like all days, when I walk to the river dragging a boat behind me. I wonder to myself how it would feel to float down a river in an upside-down umbrella. But I am not light enough for that, could you even be light enough for that.

Slowly, I push the boat into the river and crawl in, watching the cold, clear water pool around my feet.

The river carries me down stream in a gentle sway, and I look at the abandoned skid of dirt I left behind as it becomes smaller and smaller without my control.

What a perfect river I thought. No rocks no edges just calm. A simple life.

I'm about to lie down and stare into the sky when I see in the corner of my eye a girl crying by the river bank. I am feeling calm today and jump out of the boat into the cold. My feet touch the river bottom and, like a dance, she looks up at me.

A hand extends and we sit together, once again swaying down this calm river.

"What are you doing here?" I ask her.

She tells me about her life, her entire existence, her problems, her everything. 

It feels like we've been floating forever. Laughter in abundance. Yet it seems as though I am losing her and losing my love. Everything appears the same and the river becomes boring. The rhythmic sway is still swaying and I start to become sick. The girl sitting across from me looks boring.

Somewhere along the way, I don't know why (do I?), she starts to cry again. Water fills the boat, and I can't tell if it's saline or the river. 

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry Why am I sorry

It's not your fault she says, it's mine. I want to feel relief wash over me like a cool wave of water but the water is warm. 

I look away and she's gone. 

A memory surfaces as to why I'm here. A girl from the past and her hand that reached out to me. We sat together on this river and, much the same, she was gone as well. 

On the same river, I reached out to someone else yet, why, again, am I on this river alone.