I'm used to leaves in the water it was a murky above ground pool where i learned to swim. In her backyard when her parents weren't home. On the last day of school. I mean like last day forever because it was high school and i was getting a job and just enough money to travel. To go somewhere new and different and not here. And she taught me to swim, the girl next door, we grew up together and now she had tits and curves and a murky pool with leaves.
I rode my bike home the last day in the rain. Washing away the ill effects of hormones and lies. The promise if I went to college id get a good job and a good wife and house and wed have a baby and id live this fairytale life. Grinding through traffic to go to a boring job I hated, strangled inside a pressed shirt and fancy tie that feels more like a noose than success. But, the office girls talk behind my back- "What a powerful well behaved man."
I jumped off my bike and let it just crash into the yard. I saw her in her backyard getting in the pool in bra and panties and she waved me over. I thought how gross the water was and how beautiful. She ignored me at school the last four years, though when we were younger we had played doctor. We played king and queen too and i tied her to my swing set with her jump rope. It was still raining, i took off my jeans and shirt and climbed the ladder. I dove in head first and grabbed her foot underwater. It was murky and smelled like burnt leaves, warm as a stew and the bottom slick with algae. We were sure to catch something. Don't drink it she told me laughing. All of a sudden we were free from school, free from burden. And she swam over and kissed me like she meant it. Its what goodbye feels like and i have felt it many times since. But i was happy then and everything was new. Like learning to swim again. Two strangers in last winters dark water.
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