You are the anchor and I am the boat, drifting somewhere above the kelp forests, out on the open sea.

Well, when you put it like that, that can’t possibly be right.

If I had to choose one of us to do that—to be damned to a life beneath the sea—I have to tell you, I would choose myself. Because underwater, it’s so lonely. Where sound is muted as heavy water pushes against your eardrums, and light can’t even reach that far no matter how short and energetically those wavelengths bounce around.

No light and no sound.

And I know that’s the sort of darkness—the sort of emptiness that you don’t like.

So, if I must cast one of us down in a cage, it’ll have to be me. And there’s no arguing with that because hey—you chose the metaphor, and two anchors connected to each other is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.

But, okay, if we ignore logic for two seconds, and travel to a world where when you trip, you fall up, then everything gets twisted around.

And let’s be careful not to get tangled up in the chain.

If I’m stuck floating somewhere in space, then you must be my anchor.

I like this world a lot better because everything is topsy-turvy and suddenly it makes better sense.

Because, I’m the type that goes off and does stupid things. I’m the type that would get stuck, burning alive because I’ve drifted too close to a star that I thought I could reach out and grab, and hold between my hands as mine and mine alone.

I’m the stupid sort of dreamer that would believe that and would leave home without a second thought and would travel so far without so much as thinking about a way back home.

So, if in this world, when you trip, you fall up and gravity has bid me goodnight, then I’d be stuck out in that endless void, adrift among dead rocks and lost dreams that wandered too far from their sleeping partners.

Stuck alone in a cold abyss, staring down on a blue planet that perhaps, has long forgotten me.

But, if I am out here, then you are my anchor.

Holding tightly to the earth and the reality that can’t be broken, because earthquake or not, it can’t be broken if you’re there.

Waiting, with your feet planted firmly on the ground, holding a string, which tethers in the breeze as though the other end sports a buoyant balloon.

Gazing up at the sky, which could be any color in this weird world: cotton-candy pink or powder blue or neon green, because you’re the only person I know who wouldn’t get sick of staring for as long as I make you do.

And we may be a thousand miles apart, so far, so gone that I can’t remember where I am or why I’m there.

But, when I look down at my hands I realize I’m not alone, because you’re always there holding on.

Fingers locked close in a tight handhold.

My anchor would never let me drown.