Photo by Julia Karas

We didn't lie when we told Mom and Dad we were by the water. Only that had they been here, they wouldn’t have seen us. I wonder if they would have thought to look outward, past the fence and the ivy drowning in sunlight. Would they have seen us dancing? Maybe we would be crying and holding each other's hands. Maybe our arms would be reaching up towards the sky or maybe they would be dangling off the edge of the docks— laughter caught in our throats. Maybe they would be able to hear our secrets, our dreams, our promises. I wonder if they could feel the love from that far away. Would they be happy too?

There is a hole in the fence. On the other side, there are docks reaching out to the sparkling land across the river like desperate hands that have spent their lives waiting. This is where we are.

We’ve changed but this place hasn’t. Sometimes there is a lost pair of socks that wasn’t there before, an old ring, a torn piece of a love letter, but the place accepts those changes as bits of itself it didn’t realize it had before.

The first time we went, you had noticed it first. We pushed ourselves down and through the hole in the wire, scraping our knees on rocks and fallen bits of old buildings. Our backs against the sharp edge of the metal. We stop as soon as we are on the other side, another step and we’d be lost to ourselves and the world around us. So we sit until we can feel our hearts beating in our ears and feel so guilty—staring at the back of a “no trespassing” sign. Every time after that we go further. Asking now to be lost. There is something we are trying to find.

On the third time there, we get caught. Past the fence, a lady in a navy blue uniform barks at us to leave. She doesn’t know how this freedom is addicting. She only knows what she has been told by the signs; I guess that’s all we know too. Google doesn’t have a search result for “forgotten round docks in Williamsburg.” It can tell me about “what happened to the neighborhood,” but the articles read like they were written by someone who never lived here. Dad told me he doesn’t know why the sidewalk ends there or why it hasn’t been fixed. We spitball stories of hurricanes and busy government men. Of complacent people and dangerous places. This history is lost, so we make one up.

Sometimes we walk around and wonder how it all happened. How the last bit of sidewalk still intact was separated from wherever it began. How the bricks from old buildings- old lives- ended up in this one. Death brought it to a real-life limbo, funny that it is our heaven. We wonder how these circular docks reaching across the East River could have been forgotten, but we aren't worried for long because the city is in front of us. Sprawled out naked like it’s begging to be painted. And there is no obstruction in our view. There are no people to bump unless you intend to—dancing and trying not to swing too close to the edge.

We came here one year after Halloween. Our goal was to love and we did but we weren’t satisfied. We bought bacon, egg, and cheeses and told the only other person who would know what we meant by “bring them to The Hole” that we were waiting for them. Breathing in the sound of the river saying hello to the broken shore. Soaking up and spitting out memories, this place collects love.

Last summer we came here when I wanted you to kiss me and couldn’t figure out how to say it. Hoping the lights of the skyline would say it clearer than I could. Salt rising from the crests of silver waves. Sticking to our skin and begging to stay.

I remember in the beginning when she met the two of you. I was smitten by how much life they oozed and knew she would be too. Our worlds bleed into each other and onto the seams of the concrete. Every time I go back, I think of the four of us, how we started here, how our lives began writing themselves into each other. You picked the yellow flowers from the cracks of the broken pavement and in handing the messy bouquet to us, we had made a promise. I think about us and our promise; I can feel it when I duck through the fence.

I remember how we went the night that everything fell apart before we had seen anything coming—when it was just us and the city and her and him. It was hot and sticky and summer was ending. Sometimes we would see the party boats go by. The music dulled by the sound of the water missing the shore. Their voices trickle down to us like old memories. We talked about what it would be like to fly and how the movies changed our lives. I remember how you held me and how the skyline held us both. No one could see us from here, but we could see everyone. We were the gods the people prayed to—unseen, we were everything.

Tonight the river looks like a liquid sky, reflecting the pink and dirty grey, the yellow lights from other lives. I hope it swallows us up. Maybe one day we will be the liquid birds and our families will turn us into fables, moral legends, immortal stories. No one will know and everyone will have heard about the kids that rule the liquid city. I wonder if it will be a story about love. At least that’s what it was to us.