9.2

I have waded out, deepening waters clutching my legs, tearing with cold fingers at the hairs there, sweeping a constant threat against the tenuous friction that holds my shoes against the rocks below. I'm open-faced, young, optimistic. I'm engaged and intelligent. The river below doesn't understand all this; to her, I'm only another fool who won't survive a lifetime with her, won't be able to keep up with her coursing strength, won't throw myself headlong into the fullness of her like so many others have failed to do before. She is strong and never static, pushing herself forward relentlessly. I dredge my fingers through the top slip of glassy coolness, and that tenor gurgle joins the baritone turbulence behind my legs and the bass tumble over the rocks beyond.
I'm obsessed. An hour passes; my legs grow numb. I've forgotten her constraints. She is encompassing, powerful. My mind neglects above, beyond. The rock below, the air above, the banks to the sides. I adore her and continually forget the conventions she can't break, the constraints she can't avoid, the collapsed view of the world her narrow valley affords.
Why do I lift, exalt? I want to, you understand. I close my eyes to the outside world. I make myself a river. All I want is to constrain myself to her boundaries. I lay back. I collapse into her world. My ears full of the sounds of her, my teeth now chattering, my bones now fluid, my breath now choked. My limbs now, my depth now, my heart now.
I stand, I leave before the bass tumble of water over rocks catches me and carries me down and over and through the wringer, before she destroys me, unthinking, unknowing that I exist, uncaring of her ignorance.
I drip dry on the bank and walk uphill, freer than she could ever dream, enslaved to her yet.