Allison's Archives

Ama unfolds the rubber contraption as the
rivulets of veins along her arm grow prominent.
The cousins—one, two, three—circle around the
house at unparalleled speeds, chaos in tow.
A little girl stands beside Ama, waiting in pigtails
and a fringe cut in the bathroom mirror. 

The inflatable pool breathes with each pump,
grows into a blue oasis of youth as the garden hose runs.
There was magic in those afternoons when time bent
and stretched like waves in the little pool,
where the water warped the shape of the burn mark
left on my shin by Agong’s motorcycle engine.

And when exhaustion came to claim us,
we stepped into dried linen and sat in front of the television
against the backdrop of the wok over open fire.
Dinner was consumed in a state of heightened daze
and I thought I must have been weightless to fall asleep
on the couch and wake up in my bed just to do it all again.

We couldn’t have known that the last time we deflated the pool
was the last time indeed. 
Do you think we have ever filled the pool with the 
same water twice?

I trek mud into my own house
The house I built with chips on my shoulders 
Bound by locks of hair I have cut over the years
Look at my calloused hands and praise me for my labor
The key to enter is my birthday
Did you remember a letter this year or need I remind you? 

I still swim, you know. In metaphors. 
I still drown, too. In more damning blues. 
Ama isn’t around to hold my hand or dry me off anymore.
Nobody slaps the mosquitoes that perch on my skin
because I’m not a child anymore and this body has faced
worse. 

The water runs-runs-runs down my body and
is one of many things I cannot keep. 
But, oh yes, there are the rare things I get to keep:
His stillness in the mornings
The gurgle of a boiling pot my friends huddle around 
The unstable connection static of calls back home
My archives, my trove, my oyster
Mine, mine, mine
Just as much as it is yours 

The little girl—before she grew the capacity for 
sadness and grudges—in the inflatable pool on
the slope of her Ama’s driveway looks at me.
Doe-eyed. Fringe plastered unflatteringly against
her forehead that will be kissed a hundred times over.
A slight upturn of her lips. A chipped tooth. 

I look back at her and think about how in two years’ time,
in a dingy primary school classroom, as she picks up a
2B pencil to write, she will be told off for holding the pencil
incorrectly. How she will be told off by the world for doing so
many things incorrectly but she will do it anyway because if you
jump in the water, the consequence might not follow but your courage will.

Summer was coming. Summer is here. 
Summers will be arriving.
I am still five years old in the inflatable pool
and time is leaking like the water runs the pavement. 
My laughter echoes down the neighbor’s lawn and
bounces off street signs and will take eighteen years to
come back to me. 

But it finally has. And it tastes like chlorine.