RAW WATER

Winter 2020

There is something precious and horrifying about the way mourning unites people. Inheriting a legacy laden with grief lacks the same clarity. Expressions of remembrance become voyeuristic, feel shallow or inauthentic, and fetishize an unfamiliar pain and ignorance. History seems romantic, full of tragedies that prompted loves and losses with intensities unfathomable to me. Like deep water, the '80s and '90s are alluring and unfamiliar. I grew up surrounded by prairies, mountains, and now PrEP. Open water envelopes like the past does, prompting a saturation that seems inescapable. I am drowning in an ocean of meager decades, desperately filling my lungs with fluid, hoping that sinking will reveal something that remains unclear from the surface.