Waves

A. Auslander

Today, I have become liquid noise,
and my wet coughs are caught on the wetness outside of me.
It is tangible it is disconcerting—
The warm slow movements of my body work in tandem with the movement of the
current, with your hands that fill in the space above my head.
Sometimes, I don’t want this closeness;
Sometimes, it is frightening for our heartbeats to be pulsed through the same
slow-moving waves, electronic impulses meeting halfway and greeting each other with
half-sentience,
Perhaps horrifyingly with understanding.
Maybe, in this place, there are no divisions between “you” and “me.”
Maybe maybe just maybe we are a single slow-moving mass with limbs waterlogged, and
we are turning the world.
We are breathing in synchronization with the fins of this worldblood.
Only jellyfish with their no hearts in the first place could
Ever begin to explain things to us now.

We watch them move in quiet no-purpose and trail
Their stinging curtains across one another’s backs.

Bio
A. Auslander is a Philadelphia native currently in their freshman year at Penn. When not waking up in the middle of the night to write indecipherable snippets of poetry, they enjoy doodling, crying, and thinking about how much they miss their three-legged cat, Jenna.