Creative Nonfiction Story

Crafted a creative nonfiction story that was accepted for publication in Asylum magazine. Here is the story below:

There’s a vague sense of wanting to go home that had followed me around for most of my life. It was a near constant, dull ache that was impossible to not act on. But I didn’t know what action would relieve it. No matter where I went, who I was with, or what I did, I felt the same dull ache follow me around. 

When it started was hard to pinpoint. It just was a given fact of life that I don’t think I even truly understood was there. It is like the feeling of being in cold water and, at first there’s a large shock, but after a while you barely even notice it is cold. It’s still cold and it still bothers you, but it is below the surface of your awareness. I hardly remember the first time I was thrown into the deep end; I just know I probably didn’t know how to swim.

The only way to pinpoint when it began was to think of instances when I felt the coldness intensifying. The times when I felt myself diving for the bottom expecting to touch my feet to the ground, only to realize there was only water there and I didn’t know where the ground was. The panic and urgency of drowning in the cold that came from the morning after of a drug binge; the pain of hearing “YOU ARE SELFISH AND INCONSIDERATE YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR FAMILY AT ALL”; the pain of being romantically rejected by those around me due to my ethnicity and race, rather than my character; the pain that only gets relieved by more pain. 

The cold takes a toll on you, slowly but surely. One of the hardest parts of it is that even the slightest bit of warmth feels like heaven. Someone can keep you dangling on a thread and willing to do anything they want with ease; a bit of warmth makes the cold feeling that much colder, forcing the desperation below the surface to bubble up with such force that you’ll do anything to feel that slight touch of warmth again.

If this happens enough times, warmth becomes associated with the cold; instead of realizing you need to be warm, you think that warmth makes you more cold. So you learn to love the cold water. It becomes all that you swim in day in and day out. You run away from anyone who shows you warmth because it means FREEZING and leaving the comfort of numbness. 

Other people cannot be relied upon for warmth; when they go for even an instant, the cold intensifies. The lonely, cold swimming pool starts to feel comfortable.

That’s what I thought until I tried Xanax.

It was a knob that could turn up the temperature to whatever I wanted in the whole pool. It didn’t just make the pool warm, it made it boiling if I wanted. The massive, empty swimming pool became warm for the first time. Other people actually wanted to jump in and spend time with me in it. I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t cold. It worked so well that I thought it was over. I would never have to feel cold again. 

The knob wasn’t built very well. Slowly, but surely, it wouldn’t get as hot. I had to twist it hard and hold it there and strain myself to keep it even warm. If I let go for a second, not only was it cold, it was worse than ever. Ice formed in the pool for the first time. My entire body screamed with pain. It hurt so much worse because I wasn’t used to it anymore.

After a while, if I wasn’t holding the knob in place with every ounce of effort I had in my body, it would barely stay the same level of cold that it was before I ever took xanax. The thought of letting go of that knob was terrifying; I did anything to avoid letting go of the knob. Money stolen; fists thrown; noses broken: sometimes I would wake up not knowing whose blood was on my body.

But the pool froze one day. I had turned the knob so hard it broke completely. The temperature dropped so much I was completely frozen. My heart stopped beating; I stopped breathing. Something stabbed hard into my body and electrocuted the pool.

I watched my mother and father cry so hard that day. The pool was the coldest it had ever been, but it felt like nothing compared to watching my mother cry. It was over after that day. 

For weeks, I felt like I was going insane. The cold made my body shake, my mind race, and made sleep impossible. I thought I was going to die every moment of the day. But slowly, surely, the pool became warmer. 

I still don’t know if it ever got back to the temperature it used to be, but I got used to it. I was swimming in that pool. I was okay. Not happy. But okay. 

I keep swimming each day, hoping that one day I will feel warmth again. It won’t be the kind of warmth that makes the cold worse; it will be true warmth. A warmth that comes from deep inside me that makes it so that, no matter how cold the water around me, I will feel it. But until then, all I can do is keep swimming in the cold water.