Beneath.

The water called, like the siren myths of sailor lore past. Beckoning me with this overwhelming need to slip beneath the silky surface, to wash away the parts which were no longer serving, those parts that had been breaking the skin already and needed this last bit of effort to fall free.

So I went down to the water.

Fear pricked the back of my neck as I stood staring at the dark, unknown body. Not unlike times I have stared into the mirror, not recognizing who lay beneath the blue waves of my own eyes. Fearful to go past the surface, to ask the questions, to wonder out loud, to declare. Because the things I wanted to say didn’t sit well with my upbringing and that’s what happens “when you let girls go off to the city”, the ones who go before us are portrayed as weak and suggest-able and, “come back with all these ideas in their heads”.

I love the ideas in my head. I love the friends and encounters who have put them there and am grateful for the bad experiences who have too. When I say “no”, it carries weight and when I say “yes”, it paves the way. When I make a decision based on the right things instead of what people will think, that’s my being “high and mighty”, but maybe I don’t want to be shackled to the minute ideas in other people’s heads.

So. I slipped beneath. It terrifies me, that outward action of an inner war, fought valiantly maybe not even well, never far from peripheral. Letting the surface close over your face like a funeral shroud. There was a time when I was scared of never letting myself break the surface and see the light again. The reason I am always chasing. Chasing the light so I don’t commit the mistake of thinking I don’t deserve it.

I thought of all the monsters swimming around me in the lake. The slippery serpents that darted between my ankles and poked at my calves. The ones that lay in wait underneath the boulders that darted the path and the toothy grinned demons that wanted me to swim, further into the deep so they could take me to the bottom in one fell swoop.

I slipped beneath the surface.

The seaweed slid around my ankles, reminding me of the chains I’m breaking free from. The darting kisses from sunnies around my legs tickled and made me laugh. The boulders tripped us and I couldn’t blame the fake monsters for sticking out their legs in jest. And the thing saying not to swim further is the lie in my head that’s scared of expansion and change and vulnerability, because what if it doesn’t work. But what if it does and instead of a tiny lake holding me hostage I’ve found that I can swim in the middle of the entire ocean.

Photography: Ashtin Paige