Here I am about to jump,
The water, flowing through my toes,
down the waterfall,
A gentle, chilly, touch
As the water covers my feet
Crashing over the rocks and down the lake.
I jump. A suffocating gasp for air,
Anxiety is poking my lungs.
The splash in the deep blue lake,
My body, immersed in silence.
I can feel every pore in my skin,
My mind keeps drifting away.
As I am sinking,
I feel the soft touch of the algae.
The heatwave of the moment makes me forget
The ice-cold water of the lake.
My body begins floating to the surface,
I look up to the blue-gray sky.
I see big red leaves playing with the wind,
gently landing on the surface of the water.
The vivid contrast of red and blue.
To my side, there are big maple trees,
The squirrels collecting nuts from the tree,
For a long winter ahead of them.
As I float serenely in the frosty lake,
I feel my body warming up,
As the lake stops waving after my jump.
I take deep breaths that fill my lungs
With the smell of my surroundings,
The smell of wet grass, warm air, and cold water.
My eyes slowly close,
Focusing to calm my thoughts
And the shaking from the cold.
I have nowhere to be, nothing to do,
Other than enjoying the moment,
my mind relaxes as I begin to rest.
Thiago Rego is a second year finance major at University Park from Sao Paulo, Brazil. He writes: “My favorite book is Walden by Henry David Thoreau, and my favorite movie is Dead Poets Society. It’s a huge achievement in my life to be writing and submitting a short story in my second language to a literary journal. I have been writing short stories and poems since I was 9 and I fell in love with them ever since!”