I’m being eaten by exhaustion. That’s what happens when you’re tired, and I’m tired. It’s what happens when you swim, and I’ve been swimming, swimming hard and fast as I can. I’m also swallowed by pain—not just the pain of my body, the pain I live with every day, but the all-consuming pain of living in a country whose president is a psychopath. The man can’t talk straight, doesn’t think straight, doesn’t care about anything but himself—the guy is a bully, a playground bully. But this country, this world is not a playground, and he’s no kid. We’re talking bombs. We’re talking missiles. We’re talking human beings with feelings. The bully politicizes everything. Threatens to burn people, or fire people, or hang people, or prosecute them for treason, for this or for that. The rest of us, overwhelmed, all-consumed, need something out there to plunge into—it could be a pool, or maybe a mountain of snow.

coming up for air 
diving 
or drown 

Bio: Carla Schwartz