Work Text:
There is a photograph in the Great Museum of Art that depicts a woman floating in water in the middle of a perfectly ordinary room. Essays are written on the subject of this painting; entire dissertations have focused on the implications of this photograph alone. Students grasping their way into academia have discussed at length the feelings of pressure, heartbreak, fear; the tragic atmosphere of a woman drowning in air.
You have always loved this photograph, because it seems to you that it is easier to glide through water than to trudge, heavy, through everyday life. Water has always been your element; it is a part of you, changeable and unstoppable, unwearying. Mercurial and captivating and frightening to those who can’t bear depth. You are at home sliding through water, dancing, weightless, serene. It is as close as you can come to a life outside the path your predecessors have beaten for you.
You never did like to follow the rules.
When he shows up on your doorstep, with love you will come to feel only later already in his eyes, you do not hesitate. Water always seeks to fill everything that exists, and you have never been any different.