arianelizabeth
seclusion, they gave him blue cotton pants and a heavy door with one window and told him no to the snickers bar he asked for
no to the caffeine
the shoe laces
the extra blanket
no to anything that could be tied or hung or sharp or uplifting
Your eyes were casting their lowered gaze onto me. I couldn't help but dive head first into the warm water. I touched your shoulders; the strength of waves. I touched your hips and your sides and I looked to your hands covered with small scars and I hoped to be your baptismal water.
It was uncomfortable. The intense fear that I was catapulting myself into something new. A month in Ghana. I had been to Africa before but Morocco seemed altogether different than the sub-saharan. It seemed more solid, stable. Ghana seemed as if anything could happen at any time, as if freedom simply poured from its very core.
The heat was sweltering as we lowered our bodies out from the fire escape. I had everything I owned in a small pack strapped to my back. When I reached the edge I looked back and saw him standing in our kitchen looking over the counter tops with one last longing look. "C'mon Bill, we ought to be going." He turned his head and with a small, sad smile nodded and stepped out the window. "It's just, you know, it's the start of us here, and we're leaving it."