I'm Liquid

Some people are solids. Rigid, concrete, rock-hard. Not containing gaps; unhollow. Continuing unbroken over a large scale, adapting with ease. When stress is removed, they return to their undeformed state, as if the pressure was never applied at all.

But other people are liquids. Hydrous, flowing, dissolved. Forming drops and bubbles; hollow. Causing molecules to bind and break down, unable to adapt. When pressure is applied, they boil or freeze to annihilation, as if the liquid was never existing at all.

I’m a liquid. I flow freely, but I forget that I’m empty, not realizing I’ll soon bind and break down. The pressure around me forms scars and cracks that cannot be erased. When pressure is applied, I boil or freeze to death, disappearing as if I never existed at all.

But I used to think I was the only person who felt like a liquid. I was jealous of those who were solids. Those not knowing what it’s like to be empty; continuing unbroken, adapting with ease. When stress was removed from them, the scars and bruises and cracks and blood and pain would be erased.

Over time, I got to know more and more liquids. More people, who at one time or another, have been broken. I couldn’t see their scars because they simply covered them up well, better than I could; well enough that it made it seem as if they never existed at all. I couldn’t see the emptiness in their smiles because it seemed so natural; natural enough that they’d been practicing it for years, in front of the mirror, while I never even thought to rehearse.

But sometimes you go on wondering for years if someone is a liquid or a solid, without ever really knowing; wondering, if that person standing next to you at a stoplight has exploded into space, frozen to death, their drops and bubbles are forming in their soul but not on their skin.

Maybe, though, you’re made up of helium. No matter how low the temperature gets, for some reason, you will never freeze. Often, I like to think I’m helium, that I am resilient; and no matter how many bridges I cross or mountains I scale, I will simply continue.

But the truth is, my particles form firmly. When I reach my boiling point, I become broken molecules, and when I reach my freezing point, I become glass, fragile and cutting.

Sometimes when I enter space, I exist as ice on the moon, only in shadowed holes where the sun never shines and the light never comes through.

But sometimes when I enter space, the sun shines directly on me, and I do not freeze. I breathe in, hold on, and simply exist for a little longer.