I live a dozen lives in my head.
The one that keeps haunting me is one where I live as a forever whale watcher, but only from cliffs. Never in the water myself. Only ever at night. I would be bare except for boots and a curtain that I like too much to use as a curtain, letting it wrap across my broad shoulders, my broad back, and back around my broad arms. I imagine that it is too dark for anyone to gaze at me, and if they did, they'd see a shape they were only familiar with, but never got to know truly. It wouldn't even spook them.
I'd be the ghost that existed in all their nights.
My fingers would curl tightly into the fabric whenever I'd glimpse shapes darker than the night, far from the white foamy-mouthy edge of the beach. Shapes that shift slightly before disappearing like little black horizons. I'd run further down to the edge of the cliff. Each time, running out further until one more step means turning myself into a siren for the waves below.
The spyglass would be in one hand, almost brand new except for where my fingers wore the bronze down. The full moon, wherever it glows in the sky, would reflect itself as a road towards the magnificent creatures.
My heart would lurch at their sight and tumble when they're gone, one eye more sore than the other. This would happen all the time and just when I thought I'd gotten used to feeling lost when a shape dips below the surface, I feel more lost when I see them.
Looking at things I want to keep. Creatures that must be free. But for a second, they're mine, before they're gone. Nothing changes in that moment and I have everything. My eyesight, my boots, my whales, my cliff and ocean, and all my wonder, my youth, and my want.
By some lucky hand, I'd never be cold, no matter how windy it would be. As long as my feet are warm, I'm warm and as long as my feet are heavy, I am rooted where I am. At least, until another whale sighting. I would let my hair blow against my face. My eyes would be sore from staring, blinking only when it would need to, and no one would call me to return inside.
They've gotten used to pretending I'm well where I am.
I'd wonder what keeps me rooted in a different spot on the cliff every night. Perhaps each spot makes the foamy teethy whites of the ocean closer or farther. Each spot makes my curtain fly differently. Perhaps I want to see all perspectives from the edges of my world and grip my curtain cloth like wings.
Suddenly, I hear it.
My imagination would fill the spots when I don't see the whales. Images of warm liquid gold running down the tip of my head, over my silver dress, down my arms, belly, and thighs, to the floor. The shocked gazes of anyone who opens my front doors. I look too bright to be anybody's in my imagination, but I'll always want to be the friend you loved, even if I'm swallowed up. Even if I changed after rising from my dive.
But I hear it. The wind blows harder and I hear the laughter of the women I loved. At the jokes I used to make. Because I was that person.
I was the person that made the jokes, made the effort, made the last-minute plans, made half the conversation and asked for more. I was the one that was always gone and always came back. Once, I laughed, I said, weightlessly, like a whale. To be so vast and almost always more than anybody's imagination. Weightlessly moving in every shape, everywhere.
No longer on the edge of cliffs.
Once, I never waited for things to happen.
I want to be all mine again.
I don't want to look at whales until the sun rises. Eyes aching.
Tears I'll never feel, blown away as soon as they rise.
Hands gripping at the same places on the same spyglass.
I don't want to be the ghost that you've always known, always seen, when you've closed your eyes, then woke up in the middle of the night, and looked out the window above your bed, only to see me.
The one you've seen, every night. Different places on the same cliff.
A shape you're familiar with, and you can't stop staring at, because it makes you feel haunted. That you might know me and you could do nothing about it.
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oh my GOSH okay, this was an atmospheric read ummmm IM OKAY. I PROMISE.
This whale-watching thing was not supposed to be so spooky, but wELP, I went all in. Heh. :)
Maybe there is a version of me out there, sadly watching whales and never touchin' them. Maybe there is a version of you out there that sleeps every night in a house right above the ocean.
My mom says I stay up too late writing nonsensical things that are even MORE nonsensical when Google-translated hot off the press into Vietnamese.
Alas, cheers to me, and my future home-owning self. Hopefully, I do own a home, next to friends. Or down the street from one. Hopefully, I always make friends where I live and never have to haunt anyone. :P
