Blurry Lens

by Malia Gentile

I sit atop a magnifier.

The view is lovely, all one could desire.

The clouds sculpt shapes to my mind’s content.

The breeze is cool and wipes my sweat.

Until my eyes wander down below;

A void: starts here, ends nowhere, but who knows?

A true curio...

With a deeper look, I am twined, to the will of the unknown hollow.

This foreboding presence overwhelms; no trees, no breeze, no view.

Clouds, but not the ones I choose.

Out of the shadow, a storm has surged, and heavy gusts buckle my knees.

The rain targets the weak and confines me, even against my pleas.

Up to my legs, my arms, my neck...

Check! check! you’ve won. I surrender, so please!

Suddenly, my head is under.

I’m drowning.

Why won’t I budge?

...Look up...

Water is filling my lungs.

Why am I here?

What did I do wrong?

I bite, bite away my nails.

Look up.

It’s so simple.

Don’t disappoint everyone.

Just move.

Useless…

Look up.

You crave attention.

Irrational, sensitive, insensitive, absurd.

Just move, just look, even for a moment!

To see that view that you loved so dearly, you must...look up!

My view focuses upwards...for a moment, but...

Which is reality? Which is my fate?

Is this the life I’ve laid out on my plate?

Will my eyes ever dry? Will the wind ever cease?

Will the storm I once loved turn back to a breeze?

Just one last time, for a mere moment, I must feel the gust play and perform.

So with little strength left, I muster it, and reach my hand through the swarm...

Yet notice no trickles in reply.

...Impossible.

All this water, all this rain, and...my hand is dry?

I sit up.

My hair, my face, my body, my eyes, all untouched by the storm.

The flood trickled downwards...almost as if it had never entered before.

I lay across the glass,

I look up at the clouds, the view, the breeze,

And beside me are droplets...which come and go as they please.

Malia Gentile (she/her) is a first-year and intended Environmental Science/Policy major. The arts in all forms—writing, drawing, singing, theatrical performing, dancing—are prominent forces in her life that have shaped her into the person she is today.

Illustration by Marley Reedy