Today I picked up a round rock from the shore of Lake Washington and threw it into undulating sunlight. I’ve always been drawn to water, drawn into water. Its surface especially fascinates me— its transparency and opaqueness, depending on depth and perspective. Today the water was a liquid mirror and the sun’s warmth and brightness knifed brightly in every direction. I held the rock in my hand, only for a second, then tossed it into the light. It dunked under, removing the water, which shot upwards, splashed down. The sunlight, which had been caressing the soft waves, exploded into thousands of pinpoints of light. Only a few seconds and the water replaced the rock, the rock lived at the bottom of the lake, the sunlight caressed, the waves held its light in large pockets.
I imagine spooling. I imagine times that unspooled me. Someone grasped a frayed end of my psyche and pulled. My long, hollow core spun and fell. The psyche is attached by a small piece of clear tape, secured before birth, but the tape cannot prevent unspooling. The length of me runs the world; I am all different colors now. Some of me is grimy, some washed clean. I spin slowly, collecting myself.
Unlike water, I will not resume a shape. I am meant to change, and remain changed, and change again.
