get in the water

you are sixteen and you know who you are

There is a feeling I have endlessly tried to recreate, but I think will be forever lost on me because I am not sixteen anymore. Imagine it is a summer set to end, enclosed on both sides by a season of dreariness and blizzards. The sun is ephemeral. You feel your bones know each day is numbered. In the mornings when you wake it is already so hot and humid the only salve is an icy shower. You don a bathing suit that smells atmospheric and plasticky like chlorine and fabric dried in the sun. And this is your uniform. You will wear it until the sun goes down and finally there is a chill and there are fireflies in the tall grass. There is a type of exhaustion that clings to you, because you have spent all day in a pool or a lake, either teaching children to swim for pay that is only slightly better than minimum wage, or teaching yourself how to get up on water skis. Your skin is warm but not burnt. Your hair is damp and unmanageable. You are sixteen and you know who you are. You are sixteen and you know the correct form of a dive. Today, you’ve eaten some toast, and maybe a halved avocado dashed with kosher salt, right out of its skin with a spoon. Tomorrow, you will get into the water. Every day you get into the water.