Floaties
by Maggie Russell
Those rules you hold onto, like one finger gripping the pool’s edge, a terrified way to be brave, became the ones you drank all over, drowned your inside voice to escape from, yes, those rules. You thought that the bottles you were attached to, of bourbon and thick red wine that left an oil slick on your tongue, buoyed you. That they’d help you stay above water, save you from flailing. But self, no one else is in the pool. No one will watch you swim back to the place where you can stand. Go stand on your own.
Maggie Russell is a writer and editor. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize and appears most recently in Flash the Court and January House. Maggie volunteers with programs that teach writing in prisons and is an editorial reader for literary journals. Raised by the woods in Connecticut, Maggie now lives in Nashville with her husband and pets. Find her online at www.maggierussellwriter.com.