text: I feel my feet barely touch the rough rocks below the water. I wade only a small distance from the shore in the murky green lake as the thumping in my temples respond to the overbearing heat. I breathe, and yet it feels that the water has filled the air as much as it has my pores, and the soft caverns of my lungs continue to feel its nourishment. The water is still and cool, and I can stand in place on the rock with only a slight feeling of my hips twisting. *Rain has yet to fall.* I close my eyes to the looming willows, intertwined with white daisies and zippering fleas, and listen to the imminent summer storm. Not relentless as one to change the seasons, but one that is thorough and plain. Livable. I feel this emotion come over me, I am nothing in this world. No bigger than a grape woven into the skirts of a mountain and yet I have this power that comes intrinsically to the living thing. I am nothing in this world, and this lake will never remember the feeling of my feet on its bottom as I remember the feeling of its bottom on mine. In ten years or ten weeks or ten days will I remember the rough edges of this rock? The rock on which my whole world stands still. I gently kick with my feet, not letting go of the rock, just enough to keep my balance as the waters around me begin to crack open like ice. The rock nourishes me as I balance on it, as if it can protect me from all the rain to come. And yet somehow, I know I must leave the water someday, away from its protection. But I am not scared, until I had the rock, I never needed it so I will continue living without it. Living, finally. The song of a bird makes me open my eyes. A short call, not one to start a response. And yet the bird decides that it does not require the energy it consumes in calling; it will just call instead. And call it does. And stand I do, looking around for it but without any success. I am marvelously intrigued by the tone and rhythm of the call, and it makes me continue to look around and lose my balance slightly, kicking to stay upright and treading with my hands. I feel the cool waters clashing with the skin around my neck, skin that feels the weight of the dank air. Flies swarm so close I could bite down on them and chew. I feel the bird calling me out, its song continues. Tears beat at the back of my throat and near the bottom of my eyes. Why, I do not know. I should begin crying soon, I know I should. But I cannot until I leave the water, lest my tears fall into this vast basin and be shed in vain. The water picks me up, and slowly drifts me backwards. I trust it, it is not a long journey to shore, it can take me there. And if I should drown because of it, then I let the world make its choice, as I am nothing. Nothing like the snails on the road. Goodbye, rock. *Rain begins to fall*. I emerge and I am something, something like snails to a watchful eye. The lake is more active now, waters moving and pushing, somehow this part’s work is done and yet as a whole there is so much more to do. Oh, the woes of the waters. Life fills me with warmth as the air engulfs me. I feel the lake on my skin, its homely waters resting in bulbs as I lay still. Some are disturbed by the occasional faint droplet coming from the sky. Those are painful tears, tears of something ready to burst, but tears of love or hate only the waterer knows. The rain hurts, and so I let out my tears. I imagine them beating through my skin, and finally ripping through. Not coming from my eyes but from under, a place they come from when they are not mine. These are not my tears I am crying but I feel the pain, fuck I feel the pain. Why do I feel such pain? And then I take my first real breath, and everything comes back to normal. I have a gentle wheeze as I inhale, and feel the real air enter my lungs. Warm and thick, I feel it pressing against my cheeks. I know why I am crying. The bird’s call makes me stand up. Water dripping down my back and down my legs until it reaches the soil, just as the rain begins to wash away the muck left on me. Calm but strong, the bird’s call finally has a location, it has been calling me. I meet its gaze. It is a small bird, yellow in its feathering with red around its eyes, and a tall head sticking up from its round body. And finally I understand that I was wrong. I am nothing to myself, but to that bird I am everything. So what am I... Everything or nothing? I cannot be both, but here both exist. And so I decide I am something after all, and the mountains can have their grapes in their skirts because I have you. I didn’t realize it was you until I could see you, but I see it now. I have you with your brown-almost-black eyes and your ugly toes that you are always embarrassed of, but I find adorable. You sit perched on a rock nearby (did I love a rock once?) and you sing for me to come to you. And I come to follow you forever. Until you find the place you want to take me, somewhere where the rain doesn’t feel so bad, as it enters, my skin.