by Katie Coleman

Do you remember the white tiled cubicles and how we shivered and our teeth chattered and the goose pimples and our dancing feet as we hurried with thin towels, and underwear clung to our skin and again the next day and the day after that, and our hair grew unruly and circles pressed around our eyes like bruises, and one day I climbed the third diving board which was more of a tower and you said I shouldn’t go, and I was the only girl among a pack of boys who turned cartwheels and screamed as they dipped beneath the water and I spent twenty minutes trying to get the courage to jump and I hated my hesitation and when I made it to the edge, fire ants burned in my belly, and I stepped into nothingness, dropped and smashed through the surface, and I powered straight down through infinite water and when I looked the surface had closed like a lid, and with my lungs maxed out, I paddled and rose among bubbles and screeches and muted voices, tearing at the water as if I was with you.

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