I can feel the undertow pulling at my ankles. If I'm not careful, I will look up and be yards away from where I started. If I'm not careful, what's moving beneath the surface will carry me far away from where I thought I was.
Everything around me swells, rises, exhales. Taking my body with it. I can see the wave coming, building farther out, rising in a way that prepares me. But then it changes and the crests are closer. They rise higher, they crash harder. Instead of cradling, water pushes. Pushes from above, tugs below. Before long there's not enough time to catch a full breath before the next wave broadsides me.
Looking up, variations of blue and gray and salt expand each way I turn. Dragging feet through the water, grit slipping over and under my feet, pulling away.
I'm hit head on, towed away.
How long could this last? Fighting against the body to move, to stand, indistinguishable tears fall.
Whatever compels me to turn, to move shoulder and face away from the wavelength. But I cut through, tossed as I go, and rest against what is now behind me.
I am carried.
I breathe.
The farther back I rest, the gentler what carries me becomes.
The submission, maybe, was what it was after.
What was all gray now breaks. The end of it comes. Rising up beneath my feet, still pulling, still dragging, but also rising. What's around me encloses, also propels. Still with the power. But without the fight.
And I am delivered. By the thing I thought would destroy me. Delivered home.
