Afloat

Ever since I was a child I floated.

Through the masses of people on my way to school,

Through parties I wanted to leave early,

Through hard days

I floated with my head in the clouds until I floated in a pool.

Our neighbors, the Geofries, had me housesitting for a month

many summer ago. I spent my days floating.

Sometimes in all my clothes, sometimes in swimming trunks, but I was never touching the ground.

I don’t think I have ever felt so light.

Like the world couldn't touch me and nobody could reach me without experiencing the float themselves

until they eventually got trapped or caught by it as well.

Ever since I was a child I floated.

When I left home, I left that pool and I was desperately searching for ways to stay afloat.

My next resort was the wind. I couldn't choose my float days anymore,

as the wind was a force that didn’t want to be controlled.

But on days the wind gave me its blessing I was standing out in the field,

my arms spread far apart like I did in the pool many years ago.

The air rushing around me cupping my ears from the sound go the world until I was floating again.

Floating alone, the wind keeping the world from touching me. Keeping everyone from reaching me

without being caught up in the wind themselves.

When I moved to the city I had already left home and the pool,

now I had to leave the wind and I was desperately searching for ways to stay afloat.

I couldn't find it.

Alcohol made my head just dizzy and not light like a feather,

Drugs made me forget the feeling of floating all together,

Sex wasn’t as uplifting as it once was.

Sometimes I stole days to go to a lake or out in the country, but it was never the same.

And once it was my turn to be launched, I was hoping to float again.

Float in my shuttle and my suit in a way I had never floated before. Floating in nothing but pure time, a place where the world couldn't reach me. But Houston did.

So when the accident happened, when the ship fell apart, when the communication was shut down and my crewmates gone.

I was floating again.

Ever since I was a child I floated.

I was floating like I had never floated before. In pure space, in pure time.

Ever since I was a child I have been floating. In the clouds, the pool and the wind.

I will be floating forever, I no longer have to leave.