MAPS

When I was six, my father threw me
into the deep end of the pool. No warning.
No story before impact.
The floatie on my left arm slipped off
like it, too, wanted to abandon me.
I remember water entering my nose,
the blue swallowing me whole,
the sound of the surface growing distant.
It was September, 2004. The water, cold.
Me, a trembling twig
clinging to the half of me still floating.
I kicked my way back.
Dad only asked:
Where’s your other floatie?
As if it hadn’t been his hand that turned me into a meteor.
Now that I think of it,
I was the one who convinced him—
Throw me, Dad, I said, I want to learn.
Maybe I’ve always had it in me,
a tendency to leap without a parachute,
as if the world were a story begging to be heard
and I, a boy collecting versions
of what it means
to make it out alive.

I could tell you how I learned to reroute
my dopamine receptors; how I drew invisible trails
between my need for adrenaline
and the tenderness I left somewhere—
as if it were possible to draw maps
that hold both: the collapse
and the celebration.
I swear it’s no coincidence
my memory is made
of pools, elevators,
airports where nothing arrives on time
except fear.

Always those straight lines going up
or down. Always that vertigo
like an old voice repeating my name
with thirst.
It’s not that I prefer the desert,
but there’s something honest in it
that calls to me.
A place without lies. No water, but no shadow either,
sometimes an oasis hides there,
sometimes it’s just a version of yourself 
waiting for you to arrive alone.
It’s scary, but there’s warmth, too,
a silence that doesn’t judge.

And if I map out how I’ve made it here,
you’ll see there’s always a coordinate
pointing upward—as if the sky were the only place
where those of us who almost drowned
can finally rest. 

Artwork Courtesy of our featured Artist Hassan Zahreddine