WET (moist page remix)
So many ways to be wet, the dangerous kind, the puddle kind, gumboot smiles and Tweety Bird umbrella memories wet, 1981 wet, being in the rain and your dad’s afro haircut getting all soggy and you see the shape of his head for the first time wet. Fun wet, 11 wet, dressed in a bikini for the first time, it’s all baggy where your breasts are supposed to be. You tie a garbage bag around your waist so you can pretend to be a mermaid, jumping off the bridge and yelling ‘Madonna!’ as you crash into the water.
Wet teenager, first kiss, someone else’s tongue in your mouth feels…wet. Palms clammy.
Wet pool, the thick skin of chlorine and protective bath towel to wrap you up in year 7, awkward wet. Female wet, not the first wet, the tease wet, the wet you don’t even understand yet wet.
The woman’s wet, the curdle scream yearn primeval wet. The wet that’s like a mini water balloon full of sardines. Sad wet, where you’re crying and only fountains understand, so you jump off trams like some kind of crazy messed up fountain addict. You see one and sit by it and look knowingly at the constant
downfall
of water suddenly understanding why there are so many fountains in the city.
Sea wet, beyond you wet, a salty big rough jerk wet that tastes like the other sort of wet, but has so many different rhythms and versions of blue. The hose on a hot day, so intensively cold it shocks you but feels so good to be wet wet.
Shower after a hangover, cleaning off the dregs of disposable conversation out of your hair wet out of your skin wet, because for that moment as the hot water is streaming down your back you are forgiven everything. That water is so soft and so kind. Not like a tidal wave that seems like terror wet, angry wet, flood wet, where there is just no way you could imagine being dry wet. Not like that wet.
The human body is 70% water, this wet knows you.
And this wet is the other 30% coming home.