#Jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of a pool.

[waterloggedsoliloquy]

i'm thinking about the kayak on the youghiogheny river when i was thirteen. i tried to write a poem about it once but it wasnt a very good one bc it was just me explaining what happened. this isnt that poem.

i can't remember it very much but the things i do remember are very clear. i remember the sunlight coming through the orange plastic of the kayak as it held me down. the water that was black by comparison. you know those herons that fish by creating a spot of shade with their wings? it was kind of like that, the water black in this one spot. no air pockets. just enough light to see bubbles by, like white outlines. but i dont know how much of that is stuff i imagined afterward. bc in the afterward was the river pebbles on the shore so close to my face as i was dragged upwards by the back of my lifejacket. i almost died with a lifejacket on, isnt that stupid? i remember hurling river water. and my dads friend who pulled me out sat there with me while i hurled and i was crying, but i suddenly stopped crying, like full-stop, like turning off a faucet. i remember that bc he called it weird. and i wiped my mouth and smiled at him and said i was fine now. i had to get back in the boat anyways to complete the kayaking trip.

when you drown its really really quiet. thats why youre supposed to watch your kids and your friends when you go swimming because most of the time a drowning person can't yell. you just go down and you're held down and by the time you realize what's happened to you, you're fighting a current heavier than anything. and it really is the heaviest thing you'll ever feel. when i was itty bitty i was playing in ohiopyle and a rapid was stronger than i was and it held me under. my eyes were open then too, it was a sunny day and the water was clear and i could see the sun sparkling through the wave that was cresting over my face. i didnt yell, or flail, i dont even remember panicking. then the shape of my dad came over and he blocked out the sun. and then pulled me up. he yelled at me, said that if i was in trouble like that i should cry for help, why didnt i do that? but it hadnt occurred to me, probably because it hadnt exactly hurt. logically i knew it was dangerous to be trapped under water, but without pain i couldnt have known how close i'd been. i don't think i could have yelled even if i thought to, though.

second time id almost drowned was in my cousins pool, elementary school. my abuelita had jumped in, fully clothed, to pull me out. that one had hurt. even the river years later hadn't hurt very much. my lungs felt like they were on fire and my throat stung from chlorine.

its weird to talk about these because it creates in me the same dread and apprehension that wells up every time i try to disclose abuse, even though nobody did anything to me, it wasnt anyone's fault. i was just a kid who hung out in rapids a lot and the grownups in my life thought i'd be alright on my own. but i still stall out on instinct, the part of my mind that keeps me from putting my hand on a hot stove. maybe my brain files away the drownings in the same folders as the abuse. these are the scary things, its probably labelled, these are the memories of when you were a child discovering what it meant to hurt and to die.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

I see a lot of people quoting "Jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of a pool. I ask Jessica what drowning feels like and she says not everything feels like something else" without crediting Angie Sijun Lou so. here's the full poem, "Jessica gives me a chill pill."

[nightcorecarseatheadrest]

“Jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of a pool. I ask Jessica what drowning feels like and she says not everything feels like something else.” - Angie Sijun Lou

[puppybong]

Jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of a pool. I ask Jessica what drowning feels like and she says not everything feels like something else.

[lovevanpalmer]

callie asking shauna what being out in the wilderness was like and shauna feeling all the dread, terror, exposure at the thought of trying to explain it. how do you explain to your daughter that you were The Butcher. the one with the knife. the one that got their hands the dirtiest. that you know what it's like to slit throats and cut flesh and tear back muscle. shauna feeling the same as "jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of the pool. i ask jessica what drowning feels like she says not everything feels like something else."

[injacksoncage]

i was eating lunch and then Jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of a pool. I ask Jessica what drowning feels like and she says not everything feels like something else.

[awkwardexxodus]

not a SINGLE month goes by where i wont think about Hazel and Percy and Drowning AND "Jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of a pool. i ask [...] what drowning feels like and she says 'not everything feels like something else.'"

[magicalantiquity]

Jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of a pool. I ask Jessica what drowning feels like and she says not everything feels like something else.

Angie Sijun Lou

[t4tails]

i think about the jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of the pool poem every time i see some dumbass simile or metaphor get made. not everything feels like something else dipshit

[sunthroughtherust]

my ideal slaine/asseylum dynamic is just "jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of a pool. i ask jessica what drowning feels like and she says not everything feels like something else."

[saintashes]

jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of a pool. i ask jessica what drowning feels like and she says not everything feels like something else. (is plagued with visions) (this bit will always leave me restless) (i am insane i am insane i am insane) (eats drywall) (ugly sobs)

[nightcorecarseatheadrest]

Jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of the pool

[trans-ylvania]

there’s a clarie’s choker. a pure love that just can’t happen but maybe in another time if things had been just a bit different. if one or two decisions hadn’t been made. joe is there. jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of the pool etc etc

[drusillasdoll]

I keep waking up in different

beds and in this same

body. I have to say this

right away so you know

it didn't start with limbs

slackened, hair

oily, a cruelty towards

the sun. It started

in the backseat of Jessica's

Pepto-dismal truck. She

tied my hair back with

rubber bands when

the freeway passed clean

through us. Jessica says

I can feel like a cherry

blossom tree wobbling

under lightning. Jessica

has a forehead scar from

the deep end of a pool. I

ask Jessica what drowning

feels like and she says

not everything feels like

something else. That night

we lose the 7/11 lottery

but I draw my lucky

number, no quarters

so we scratch our tickets

with fingernails. Jessica says

that's the sanctity of ritual—

a ceaselessness in how

I look at every drop

of rain before it touches

ground, the way Jessica

mouths my name in her

sleep eating each syllable like

a minor god. I'm coming out

as someone who loves

things unevenly, my theologies

strewn out in the dark,

this iPhone an almost oracle.

Jessica forces me to watch

every sunset even when I

am full. She puts her fingers

in my mouth and says open

your eyes. Open them.

You see the small-town girls

on big billboards? One day

that's us.

[cinnamonchaos]

Jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of the pool.

I ask Jessica what drowning feels like and she says not everything feels like something else.

[romanticise-a-quiet-life]

‘Jessica says I can feel like a cherry blossom tree wobbling under lightning. Jessica has a forehead scar from the deep end of a pool. I ask Jessica what drowning feels like and she says not everything feels like something else’

Jessica gives me a chill pill, Angie Sijun Lou