Photo source: Inga Gezalian on Unsplash.
The water brushes against my feet,
a crude mixture of warm and cold.
It seeps into the edges of my dress,
the chill summer air pulling me in,
urging me to dive right in, inviting me
into a world unknown.
The surface lays bare,
clear, yearning.
Yet, hiding the truth deep within
pushing me away at every turn,
exists a contradiction.
I stand still for a moment,
staring at my reflection beneath the waters.
Who am I,
if nothing else but a collection of memories
contradicting each other
at every given turn?
To one, I am warm and bright
as a glowing summer day.
To another I am cold,
frigid as long winter nights.
I reflect the world I see,
like the dusty mirror on my bedroom wall,
or the glass windowpane I see every night.
And yet, I fear that beneath my surface
lies a version of me that I don’t recognize,
as bare as the beach on a cold summer night.
The clarity I seek pulls me in.
I wish to learn more,
to have a purpose and a true identity.
But –
What if I don’t like the reflection that gazes back into me?
What if my purpose is undefined,
my existence as murky as the oceans I stand upon?
The fear pushes me away
into a never-ending abyss
far from the realm of self-discovery.
I brush my toes against the water beneath me,
my body sending heat shivers down my spine
and swaying in the brisk air.
The edges of my dress drenched in saltwater and seafoam,
the rest as dry as a golden autumn leaf,
I yearn to dive deep,
into a world beyond the scope of my imagination.
My limited knowledge of the surface I see,
so clear, so transparent,
yet still hazy and unknown.
Laying bare my fragile soul –
the hollow truth that awaits me
that doesn’t quench my thirst for knowledge
still lurks deep within the shadows.
A secret I have kept from myself,
and the world around me.
A natural contradiction.
A girl with supposed substance
yet nothing to show for it.
Beneath reflective surfaces
flows an undercurrent of apathy,
a split nature.
Perhaps we weren’t so different after all.
Edited by Freya Harrod.
