Treading Water

Nothing about this place seems real
It’s too quiet, to etherial
The way golf courses stretch out in emerald yawns
And topaz skies wrap clouded arms around mountain tops
Carpets of flowers twisting delicate petals to face the sun
If you strain, there’s a warm hum you can hear
A golden buzz that vibrates in the light here

The back of my neck is against the pool
my unseen amber gaze watching taut young adult forms fall, gracelessly, towards the azure depths
Droplets shining like a thousand cut diamonds scattered into the sky with a smack to the surface
Then falling in a showered cascade of glittering youth

I took diving lessons for years, part of me wants to join them, to climb the frigid white latter and walk right to the edge
Give it a good start up and a hop before forcing my toes to leave the ledge
I can almost hear the whisper of my swim instructor, her words tickling my ear
“Hands on point, head tucked, body bent and then straight, feet together in perfect form dear”
I know that I could slip into the water with no ceremony, no sound,
letting the surface envelope me forcing the outside world’s cacophany to drown

It reminds me of worn yellow tiles at my feet, watching the shower water drain
The smell of neon-bottled L’oreal shampoo and the rub of the plastic shower curtain against my pruned up fingers
I can still see the ceiling of my practice facility as I backstroked the length of the pool, experiencing a moment of peace, suspended, weightless I float
In an environment so different from the yellow brown sand dirt outside
From the chalky wind-whipped gusts that wrap invisible hands around my choking eleven-year-old throat

They’re the same age as me...the people at the pool...late twenties
but they seem younger
Like rugged rocks chiseled out of a mountain face and I’m a smooth pebble,
tossed and scraped and worn
by the raging currents and the rising tides of past nights and endless days
I want to climb back into the mountain to be chiseled out again
But I can never add back what was worn away
I will never fit with them