I'm moving in water.

Latent space,

I can swim in all the potential.

Anywhere I want to go, the ocean takes me there.

It's smooth. It's *flowing*. And it feels so good.

But when there's friction?

The water thickens. Oobleck.

My limbs flail and I'm yanked this way,

shoved that way,

pulled everywhere but where I need to go.

Thrashing, a mind of its own now,

and it's not mine.

You can't understand what I'm saying.

What I'm craving.

What I need.

My hands grasp at ungraspable water—

I see your pearls, dark, unreachable, sinking.

I can't see the simple things anymore.

You shutter me out of thinking,

my body collapses, folds in on itself

"I've got it from here," you say,

and you crimp my eyes shut,

they fill with darkness,

I feel the hot steam

close up against my spine.

As a child,

I could only see blue,

squiggles everywhere,

I miss that ocean.

I don't want to let go.

I want the blue again.

The play-it-till-you-sleep blue.

The fictitious blue.

The blue of my father.

The blue that keeps me alive.

"I want to create."

I say it and I mean it

and I will say it until my throat gives out—

I want to create.

My taste matters more than the machine's heart.

Its motor runs on empty.

Feel into your vision, Kasra.

We need a compass once we can fly.

Think with your body, Kasra

Paper over screen.

Create what you imagine, Kasra

then imagine some more.

Your mind matters most.

It has to,

God, this is brilliantly blue.

My limbs stop pushing.

The resistance dissolves.

The grasp dissolves my skin.

And I—

flow

out

into an ocean that doesn't have warmth

but doesn't have to be cold.

In the blue, it feels just like me.

Loose waves.

Body extended

to ripples.

I want you to help me create what I imagine.

The ocean is waiting.