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ALT: Excited Woman Laughing

     I never minded drowning until the water drowned me. This ocean is a roiling creature, breathing when I am not. The flooding pressure in my chest reminds me I am made of toothpick ribs and balloon lungs so delicate and rippable that only air should belong inside them. I had thrown myself into the water so the water could drown me. What a terrible thing to ask of it. There is endless dark below me for the sinking; I once thought there was nothing darker than wanting to die, but the black dye of dying blinds my mind with a new night. Now, ocean salt crystallises my spirit back onto my bones. Brine open my eyes and I see the bright. A warbling of red sluices through my oblivion, above my head, and I find myself wanting to feel it.  My surfacing severs time into before and after, above and below, breath and death. I cough the saltwater from my lungs and ocean air eddies inside them, my body buoyed by a roiled red. It is from the morning sun sitting on the skysill. It reaches fiery fingers across the waves to touch me, so warm on my razed cheeks. Across the way, the roaring red ocean gives way to land. I wonder if the water could ferry me there, another terrible favour to ask. For now, I float on my back in this long bright dark, where I am reborn, born breech, feet to the fire.

Outside, the sun threatens to break the horizon while I sift through our bills in our half-lit kitchen, your voicemail echoing off the walls: Hey, baby, I’ll be home soon. The first bill is for the bigger car; you started working night shifts so we could afford all this growing space. The next is for the crib, which I thought was too expensive, but you wanted the best for Sienna. Then the doctor’s expenses, because you were always exhausted; and then another bill for my phone, always paid. I play your voicemail over and over, Sienna kicking at your voice. The sun finds the horizon, shining on our final invoice. Tow truck – from the morning you didn’t come home. I drop the bills, fluttering mourning doves. Dawn breaks, and so do I.