On the Edge

On the edge, toes curled, she really didn't want to go there not ever, not once when he told her if she didn't she was nothing but a big chicken butt and she knew she wasn't a chicken butt but even so she was afraid of the diving board--she was afraid of diving backwards, afraid of not seeing and not hearing and losing herself in the air on the way down and she couldn't see how far down because she would be backwards and her eyes would be scrunched so tight because if she scrunched them tight enough maybe she wouldn't hear her heart thump thump thrump through her head to her earlobes and maybe she wouldn't notice that her lungs had stopped pulsing, that there was no air pumping in and out anymore, that everything was just paused like a photo, paused in the between spot, between the edge and the water.