Water, 30 random word prompt
The weight of the water is heavy in my chest, a force pressing against the ribs. It rises when I don’t expect it, like a flood breaking through cracked, neglected seams. The truck of my memory rumbles through my mind, rusty with age, hauling fragments I thought were extinguished long ago. I paste the pieces together like a shattered plate, half the picture missing, half the story lost. It devours me, this rush of liquid, endless and out of control, flooding the quiet places inside me where I used to sit without fear. I stand at the edge, caught in the theme of it all, wondering if it’s even possible to swim against the current. I used to think I could, that I could control the tide, force it to bend to my will, like a recipe waiting to be perfected, like cooking the perfect meal where every ingredient blends just right. Yet, the water moves its own way, and I am left helpless, trying to catch each drop before it slips through my fingers.
It lies in the current, in its refusal to be tamed. Sometimes, no matter how tightly you hold, some things will slip away, and it’s okay. The tide of life, with its weight and its pull, doesn’t stop for you. You don’t control it. You only learn to float.
The water doesn’t ask permission to rise. It spills over the edges, unstoppable, carving new paths in the ground it touches. I used to think I could hold it back, that if I braced against it hard enough, it would listen, it would obey. I built walls in my mind, thinking they would keep the flood at bay, but water has a way of finding cracks, of seeping through the spaces you ignore. I tried to bottle it, to store it like a memory in jars, tightly sealed with hope and fear, yet the flood broke through, relentless and unstoppable. It finds its way, just as the truck finds its road, the path worn from years of travel. In the deepest parts of the flood, I see something different now. The water is not my enemy. It is not my weakness. It is the pulse of life, moving me forward even when I can’t see the way. It teaches me that even when the tide is too strong, even when it feels like I’m drowning, the current is never pointless. It’s the flow, the movement, the change. Each drop that falls has a purpose, even if I can’t see it yet. I have to trust the water, let it carry me, and learn to move with it.
We are all like water. We rise, we fall, we crash and flow. We don’t always know where we’re going, but the journey is part of us, as much as the tide that pulls us along. Let the weight of it shape you. Let the current push you, but never let it take away your will to move forward. Even when you can’t see the shore, the water will always find its way. Just let it carry you. The surface of the water looks calm from far away, smooth like a waffle iron pressed flat, hiding the spikes underneath. Beneath that soft shimmer, it’s unrelenting. It does not wait for you to be ready. It doesn’t require your permission to rise again. I tried to write it all into a poem once, tried to trap the chaos in clean lines and metaphors, but it slipped through like steam, too wild to hold still. There are days the tide goes dry, leaving behind cracked earth and salt in my mouth, and I think maybe I’ve finally outrun the flood. Then something pops, a memory, a sound, the wrong question, and I’m under again before I can take a breath. My chest tightens, not from the weight of water this time, but from the things I never learned to name.
There are parts of the past that feel antique, dust-covered and distant, but still dangerous to touch. They hum with quiet prejudice, like the echoes of antisemitism passed around tables in lowered voices, the poison hidden in politeness. The water doesn’t forget what the world tries to bury. It carries those histories, folding them into the current, dragging them forward until we’re forced to look. It’s boggling, how gentle it can seem, how healing, even, until it turns and reminds you that healing often comes after drowning. The flow does not comfort. It transforms. It softens the sharp, yes, but it also reminds you why those spikes were there in the first place.
Still water. Still truth. You don’t get to control the tide. You only get to choose how to float when it comes. Let it crash. Let it rise. Let it carry the ugliness, the beauty, the noise and the quiet. Let it write its own poem across your skin.
It is indubitably true that the water reflects everything, every fall, every flaw, every fight we swore we’d forgotten. It doesn’t ask for clarity; it just mirrors what it sees, even when the reflection is baffling, even when we don’t recognize the shape staring back at us. I once caused a kerfuffle over something small, something meaningless now. At the time, it felt like a storm. The water remembers even that, the raised voices, the slamming doors, the quiet that followed like a bog swallowing sound.
There are days when I press my forehead against the window, watching the rain streak like veins down the glass, and I wonder how much of me has been eroded by time. I’ve fallen so many times into people I shouldn’t have trusted, into silence I shouldn’t have kept. I stood tall once, thought I was too strong to drown. That’s the mistake we all make, thinking height makes you immune to depth. I’ve wandered malls trying to lose myself in bright lights and white noise, tried to stall the ache by surrounding it with neon and distraction. It never worked. The tide always finds a crack. No matter how fast you move or how many faces surround you, it waits. That’s what’s so bad about it. It doesn’t shout. It whispers. It lingers. It waits until the world goes quiet before it pulls you under.
Still, I don’t hate the water. I’ve learned it’s not there to punish. It exists only to carry, only to flow. Maybe I need it, maybe we all do, to remind us that healing isn’t a dry thing. It’s soaked. It’s messy. It’s the fall and the rising again. It’s the echo of our own voice coming back to us across the surface, reshaped by the current.
Copyright ©
Amanda Nolan
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