the laugh just came out, a rasp in my throat, before my eyes even focused on the expanse of blue, before i could even think that's cosmo again and then the splash. it was just there, a reflex, a jolt of something so deeply right that it bypassed all the careful waking up, all the mental sorting that usually has to happen first. it’s this sudden, almost brutal tenderness that hits, the way my ribs feel like they might crack open from the sheer, unearned pleasure of seeing him launch himself into the swell. it reminds me of that feeling, the one that tasted like exactly where i am, that deep hum in my bones. the kind of feeling where the salt already on my skin just feels like an extension, like it was always meant to be this way, every cell vibrating with a ridiculous, impossible yes. i keep trying to explain it, this drenching in the present, but the words just dissolve, leaving behind only the echo of the feeling itself, a low thrumming that makes me wonder if this is what being truly, utterly here feels like, all the way down to the deepest part of my gut.