by Jim Ross
Sorry, My Thalassophobia Hurts Today
What I mean when I talk about thalassophobia
is that you are suddenly standing on legs which are not your own;
you have lost the connection
between your body and your brain
and can no longer trust your calf muscles
to hold your wobbly weight.
What I mean when I talk about thalassophobia
has very little to do with Jaws (1975),
even though it has everything to do with Jaws (1975);
because it also has to do
with every other nightmarish creation conceived by our absent deity,
left to its own devices
at a depth to which He Himself has never once dared venture.
What I mean when I talk about thalassophobia
is how I used to feel as a Lutheran-raised child
when I would attempt to quantify the length of immortality;
when I could not catch my breath
at the thought of the infinite
and would cower beneath its magnitude.
What I mean when I talk about thalassophobia
is the roller coaster that careens between your stomach and your inner ear
when you peek into open water;
when you feel yourself begin to sink
even as you stand on solid ground
in response to l’appel du vide
What I mean when I talk about thalassophobia
is that, no, I would not like to join you on your boat this afternoon.
I am not in the mood to court death
with every splash and peal of laughter;
I am perfectly content in this very moment
wherein I do not need to wonder what might possibly be lurking below.
And, no, I know, it’s so fun to go swimming;
and the water sports all sound f*ckin’ great.
But what I mean when I talk about thalassophobia
is that I am suddenly NASA Astronaut Bruce McCandless,
risking the first spacewalk without a tether
while juxtaposed against the vastness of space.
So you go ahead and enjoy your beach vacation…
I’ll be right here, still on dry land, when you get back.
Shannon Frost Greenstein (She/They) resides in Philadelphia with her children and soulmate. She is the author of The Wendigo of Wall Street, a novella forthcoming with Emerge Literary Press. Shannon is a former Ph.D. candidate in Continental Philosophy and a multi-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Pithead Chapel, Bending Genres, and elsewhere. Shannon was recently a finalist for the Ohio State University Press Journal Non/Fiction Prize. Follow her on her website at shannonfrostgreenstein.com or on Twitter at @ShannonFrostGre. Insta: @zarathustra_speaks.
Jim Ross jumped into creative pursuits in 2015 after rewarding research career. With graduate degree from Howard University, in nine years he’s published nonfiction, fiction, poetry, photography, hybrid, interviews, and plays in 200 journals on five continents. Best-of-the-Net nominated, his photo publications include Burningword, Camas, Feral, Phoebe, Stonecoast. Photo-essays include Kestrel, Pilgrimage, Sweet, Typehouse. Jim’s family splits time between city and mountains. https://www.instagram.com/abracadabra5476.