Undertow

I grew up learning the tide.

How to read a room the way you read water—watching for shifts, for shadows moving beneath the surface. I learned to float without splashing. To hold my breath longer than most. To let waves pass over me without protest.

Some currents you don’t fight. You let them carry you sideways.

I became good at that. Good at smoothing ripples before they widened. Good at storing salt in my lungs, calling it air. From the outside, I looked calm—sunlit, even. Inside, something was always pulling, a quiet drag at my ankles. I told myself it was strength. That this was what surviving felt like.

Water leaves marks. It softens edges. It reshapes stone without asking permission.


Shore

Now I stand different, more like the shoreline.

Not waiting for the next swell.

There’s a difference between drowning and depth. Between silence and stillness.

I no longer swallow the salt; I let it sting and pass.

Mornings fill with small, ordinary anchors—coffee steam curling in the kitchen, school shoes by the door, the warm weight of new puppies breathing against each other.

I write at the table. I stay in the room.

There is another version of you who gets it right.

She doesn’t hesitate before speaking. Her words come out measured, steady—never too sharp, or soft. She doesn’t replay conversations later—late at night—picking them apart for holes or damage. She doesn’t regret. She doesn’t have to make amends. She never leaves anything behind that needs cleaning up.

She moves through the house without tightening, or walking on eggshells. Her shoulders stay level. Her breath stays even. When something shifts—tone, silence, the small warning signs—she sees, but she never absorbs it. It passes her the way wind passes over water without changing its shape.

You watch her, sometimes.

She stands where you stood, says the things you—almost—said, stays where you—always—left. She doesn’t brace. Doesn’t prepare for impact. She trusts the moment to hold.

You try to follow her.

You slow your breathing. Mimic hers. Measure your words. Stay in the room a second longer than you want to—just to try—then another second. You maintain your voice level. You let things land where they want to without catching them.

Sometimes, it works.

The room shifts. Air tightens. That old pull returns—quiet, familiar. You feel it in your chest first, then it rises to your throat. Your body’s natural instinct to adjust, to manage, to absorb, kicks in.

You don’t always stop it.

But sometimes you do.

Sometimes you hold your place. You let the moment move around you—not through you. You stay where you are.

And for that moment, brief and steady—
you are her.