This is not a how-to guide.

If you want it to be that’s a bad choice, but I won’t try to stop you from scaling the creaking fence. I know that the ‘Do Not Trespass’ sign is just too good a foothold to ignore.

You jump down. Your steps are light on the gravel, dampened by the rotting bark that never found its way back to the riverbed. The floods like to eat.

It’s nearly dark here, or nearly light (You get to pick. This one’s on me.)

You find yourself watching the river lapping at the reeds. Mud rushing through gaps in its gums. Are you daring it to come closer?

You look up. The Not-light shivers. Hello.

I am sitting at the picnic table, sinking into the silt.

Will you ache with me?

I need you to hear that in my voice.

You ask me what my voice sounds like and the Not-light stares at you.

Don’t you understand? This one’s on you.

Like I said: not a how-to guide.

I ask you to help me cover the table with a brown-and-white-checkered tablecloth. Its dying splinters do not like the prickly sun, I explain. You ask me where it came from, so I ask you

does it matter? It’s here now.

You sit opposite to me, and underneath our table your knees bruise mine; billowing, rolling thunderclouds rushing through hollow bones. The river vines have crawled up the metal skeleton to join us, pushing the cloth back with their winding tendrils. A long, low note hums in me and I think I’m afraid you’ll hear it, so when you ask me why you are here I say,

You have five options, I’ll tell you that much.

You look at me and I can see you reading between the lines that have gathered on my knuckles. The note is reverberating, louder now.

You’ve twisted my ribs. I’ll tell you more.

Before you are five containers:

A brown glass decanter, bound in red leather. A sleeping pill bottle, unscrewed. A yellow pitcher. An empty toothpaste tube, A lightbulb, illuminated by cool fluorescence.

You lift the pill bottle to your ear. You’re getting it now.

I ask you to describe this voice to me. I’m hungry now. My saliva is crawling up the back of my throat and the water is crawling up the bank to my feet. Am I daring it to come closer? (Or begging?)

I ask you again.

Will you ache with me

You close your eyes so that I can’t read between the lines that furrow in your brow.

You tell me I sound sick but you can’t place my illness. You tell me that my voice whines and sighs, and though the question has only five words I am tired when I reach its inflection; the question ends, but with a whimper.

I am quiet. My knuckles speak for me, running blue with veins that seek to breach my skin. This is not the answer I was hoping for.

You don’t understand why, but you want to give me what I want, so you continue, reaching for the decanter, running your hands over the stitched ridges.

My spine curls inwards, and that same low note seizes its opportunity to cradle itself in the curve of my bone.

When you rest your ear against the finish, your eyes widen and I find myself pressing my stomach against the edge of the tabletop.

You listen only for a short time. You tell me that this voice is strong and sure and knows itself. When I ask you what that means, the Not-light pushes the corners of your mouth upwards as you shake your head and place the decanter back on the table. You are close to me.

I want you to choose this voice for me. I fear I am close to begging, but the low, murmuring note in my back is sharp against my nerves and I know that I am not allowed to tell you this.

Your shoes are wet. The water is at our ankles. If you mind, your pupils give nothing away as they flicker between the remaining choices on the table.

When your hand grazes the lightbulb you ricochet away. The light is cool but the glass is hot and your fingertips are glowing.

The humming note panics, rises to my sternum because I have hurt you and I am sorry. Your arm crosses the table. You dab the warm glow onto my cheeks and tell me, with a voice like a carpark at sunset,

I can see you better now.

I think I might Love you, even if I cannot remember what Love looks like. The ache is cystic. It has been here for too long.

Will you ache with me?

You lift the empty toothpaste tube, hold it to your ear, put it down, lift the pitcher, hold it to your other ear, do not look at me, put it down, lift the decanter, the pill bottle, the lightbulb. Glow. Repeat.

You engage in this titling of the scales for many cycles of the Not-sunset and the Not-sunrise. I cannot grow tired so I grow angry instead:

If you don’t wish to help me, why are you pretending?

The Not-light stares at me and I stare at you as you balance my voices in the palm of your hands. I cannot tell if you’ve heard me. Your eyes are closed.

The water is at our hips now, hungry and impatient. I lean backwards. I let it consume my spine and rush into my jealous ears. There is nothing here but the muffled hum of a long, low note; soundwaves that sink into a dark, warm river.

Your knees still rest against mine, and I wonder if the tadpoles that brush past our shins are scaring you. No, you’ve always been much braver than me.

I want to tell the Not-light that I miss you; that I’m sorry I had to go away, but I think the Not-light has decided it doesn’t like me anymore because I cannot find it shivering in the misty leaves above my head.

I feel you stand, and then I cannot feel you anymore. Perhaps the tadpoles frightened you, or perhaps I did.

I do not hear you ask me,

which one do you want me to choose?

because I think a pair of hermit crabs may have mistaken my ears for shells.

I do not see you gather each item carefully, cocooned in the crooks of your elbows, holding them close to your stomach, nor do I feel you move towards me—though I feel the disturbed current.

And then you are there. You tilt your neck forward so that I can see your face over the bulk of my voices cradled in your arms. I sit up and face you, and you offer them to me. I take them, but I am confused.

How will I know who I am? How do I know which one to choose?

You tell me,

does it matter? I would know you in the belly of the floods.

I would know you in the Not-light.

The choice is yours and I will be here when you call

The choice is yours and I will be here.