Dip your hand into the waiting pool,
feel the liquid surround your skin,
stretch wide the edges of your fingers,
marking your boundaries in the world.
The water does not resist you,
it gives way quietly, like an apology,
as if it always knew you’d leave.
When you pull back, nothing stays.
No imprint, no void, no rebellion.
The space collapses, reforms, forgets.
Does it trouble you
to be so replaceable?
Or does it comfort you:
this forgiveness of absence,
this knowing the world carries on?
Even the ripples you cause,
like faint whispers, reach out
only to vanish into stillness.
And maybe that’s the point of it,
to not be the bucket or the water,
but the hand that dares to reach.