Melissa Wiley is the author of the essay collection Antlers in Space and Other Common Phenomena (Split Lip Press). Her creative nonfiction has appeared in places like DIAGRAM, The Offing, Juked, Noble / Gas Qtrly, Drunken Boat, PANK, and Queen Mob's Tea House. She lives in Chicago.
To exist solely now on land is to live always waiting to reenter the water—to feel soothed even by the sound of it falling. To live a life on land is to feel the loss of our former lives within our very faces.