The currents at Pirates Rocks were strong in the spring.
We left after third period.
I said “I am going swimming,” and I signed out.
We would wade out to the middle of the river where it ran strongest and paddle
but make no headway so fast moved the water that it held us still,
swimming in purgatory suspended there.

The walk there was much longer than the walk back;
heat and anticipation added miles.
We carried our shoes and walked barefoot, calluses growing thicker.
Nights I dreamed that the current held us there forever,
and we never escaped, the clutches of our small town growing tighter around us.

But that summer I left my school for good without crying.
What I remember was Steve signing himself out as he walked through the office
one last time.
Jessi transferred downstate.
Tiffany drove me home from graduation in her Talon,
and there was my freedom sitting in the driveway.
Freedom in compact car form, Freedom with a big bow on the antenna.
What I remember is summers on the beach with Jessi,
because that’s where we went with our newfound Freedom.

My car was summer back then, shiny and white with purple splashes on the side, dark tint.
I hung a lei along with my tassle on the rearview and we cruised Toms River and Seaside
in the morning, slowly.
Windows down, sunroof open, radio loud.
Matchbox 20 was our favorite, but Third Eye Blind, David Bowie, Sublime,
they sound like that summer too.
Afternoons we parked the car in town and walked to the beach.
We let the cute surfer boys try to each us how to surf,
Paddling out towards the horizon with their boards strapped to our wrists,
we made mighty strokes with our arm, fighting the currents,
but always winning.
Never did the waves rush against us so hard that it felt they might hold us there forever.
Never, not like the fastmoving stream at Pirates.
There was no moment of cold fear like a trapped animal trying to shake lose her leg.
The ocean did not want us, did not try to keep us.

So we kept it.
Like a shell held up to your ear,
the ocean, the seagulls, the radio, the surfer boys inside.
The next year was different.
What I remember then is
working late at the factory
the machines hissing and clicking in their peculiar rhythm,
the early mornings driving that car that could take me anywhere
to classes, to my fast food job.
What I found out is that Freedom is a myth.
We didn’t make it to the shore that year,
but nights I dream
that I am still at the beach with Jessi.

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