floating.

My dad learned to sail on a reservoir in the middle of the city when he was thirty-eight. My friend fell off a boat in the same water; came out with Hepatitis. He was sixteen. All my dad’s family 

that’s how I’ve always thought of them, ‘dad’s family’  

own motorboats in Southeast Texas. So, he didn’t learn to sail then. No, he found sailing at thirty-eight in a city of 22 million in South America. His sailing teacher was also my P.E. coach. 

I don’t sail, or get in boats of my own free will. I would if dad asked. He did once, after he learned to sail, and my mom and brother and I went out on the water where my friend caught Hepatitis. 

‍I want to tell you what it's like  

to pull my focus gently towards an edge and to feel it tense under my fingertips, then digin its heels, then point somewhere in the distance 

“What about that? Over there?” 

And I look because even though my focus and I are separate parts in this metaphor, in reality, it's all just me. So the me that’s gently tugging turns and looks at what the me is pointing at  

Which in this case is my one and only memory of sailing 

And the me that wanted to face the edge  

the great chasm of something important, something I wanted to say or do or think or be 

is now being tugged gently by the me that knows what waits in the chasm 

But doesn’t want the me that’s now thinking about sailing to see it 

So, I walk towards sailing but not five steps in, the chasm appears again 

God made theworld in seven days. God destroyed the world in 40 days. God remade the world in millions and billions of days. I guess I want to know how many extinction events one life can take. 

I was in love with my friend who got hepatitis from the reservoir. We live in differentcountries now. We don’t talk. I don’t think about him.  

My dad doesn’t sail anymore. Doesn’t talk about sailing. He asked me if I remember when he built a boat in our basement. Like I don’t remember everything aboutit. As if it doesn’t come up like dredged treasure every time I see something that floats. But sailing has as much to do with my dad now as reed baskets dowith a canvas tote. 

Sails are made of canvas sometimes 

‍There was something I wanted to say but now it floats and I don’t know anything about sailing and the water gave my friend Hepatitis.  

I was a swimmer as a kid. I forget that part of me. A pottery shard of a fact, popping up where you least expect it. “I wonder how that got there?” 

When you can’t keep your whole life in one frame, sometimes the present is just a mess of pottery shards. Sharp edges with no context to soften the blow.  

The last comet shattered everything down to atoms. 

Do atoms remember all the things they were before they had to move again?

Kayla Stansbury is a writer living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She received her M.Ed. from LSU, focused on bilingual middle grade fantasy, and her children's nonfiction can be found in MUSE Magazine and FACES Magazine. Her poetry has been published in the NonBinary Review and Dovecote Magazine.

Vanessa Stefanova is a surrealist artist who creates one painting and one digital artwork each week, transforming both mediums into ongoing colouring book series. Her digital artworks are often intuitive creations with no fixed intent, while her paintings are rooted in visual metaphors that explore personal experiences, perceptions, and thoughts. Through surreal imagery and symbolic expression, Vanessa develops work that invites interpretation and reflection. You can find more about her here.