Grief

The water tugs at the fresh-knit skin of my injured knuckles. It stings like pulling at a hangnail, which threatens to undo me and strip me to the bone. That’s fine, today. The pain is correct, as is the fatigue in my limbs and the faint taste of iron in my mouth. The familiar signs of exhaustion after extreme exertion.

These are the sensations that my body expects. This is how a body is supposed to feel when your life is threatened. My instinct is to run and fight and tear my flesh apart, because my friends are in danger. My family is in danger. I am in danger.

So I lash out against the water. There’s no one to hurt in a pool except myself. No matter how hard I strike, the water absorbs the punishment, swallows it, and turns it into stillness. I swim first to feel my body and in hopes of exhausting myself enough to finally sleep. Then the waves of emotion come.

They intend to kill us. I increase my pace. The majority of my country voted for this. I blink through tears and push harder. The community I grew up in, the church, my mentors, my family voted for this. I’ve hit my sprint pace and and don’t stop.

How dare you tell me that it’s going to be okay? How dare you call for unity not even one day after our eradication was secured? I’m not delusional. We weren’t safe yesterday, and our conditions have gotten worse under Biden. I’ve already lost friends. I still have so much more to lose, though.

I know what it means to be the scapegoat minority that a dictator uses to ascend to power. I know that the threats to tear us apart have real weight. I am so scared right now.

My body screams at me to stop, having exhausted the supply of oxygen in my blood. I take a gasping breath, and then finish swimming to the nearest wall. My eyes and lungs are burning. My knuckles now only feel a dull ache against the intensity of the exercise. I check the clock and it has only been ten minutes. That’s fine. I’ve been training for this. I’ll keep swimming until the waves stop coming.

That’s at least the poetic outcome, anyway.