I Will Think Only of Water

Sophie Kearing

Through gnarled branches I see him, glowing red and making everything else glow red too. Leaves flutter crimson, the forest floor angry as flames. It hurts even just to look, my eyes squinting against his far-reaching heat. Touching him will all but kill me, yet I must close the distance between us. I must get my body into that clearing. Because that searing creature is my emotional support demon. A fountain of such intolerable pain that I will think of my woes no more. I will think only of water: Pine needles dripping with rain long after a November storm has passed. White rapids thrashing between mossy banks and unforgiving crags. Arctic waves, all blue ocean and stark froth. Cold showers and ice baths and polar plunges and Russian winters. Anything to soothe the burn of that infernal beast. He’s my emotional support demon, you know. With him there is no sadness. There is only bubbling skin and singed hair and burnt-off eyelashes and corporeal agony. Yes, only that.

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