Ships in the Jungle — Cody Updike

Swinging in my hammock beneath patches of stars, a cool breeze rushes in from the sea, rolling in a haze of patchy cloud over my head. The stars flit in and out of existence through the swaying palms, unhappy that I won’t come up to play.

All I want to do is play, all I want is to feel that euphoria of finding something new. I don’t get that feeling as much anymore, not since all the little lights winked out in my chest, but slowly I’m finding it more and more.

In the night I let the words pour out of me, they’d been pounding at my skull since I had spent the day in a lost place, on a ship forgotten by the sea.

Here, in the jungle, my lungs are filled with warm air, and my shaggy hair is rough and tangled with ocean salt. I love the way it feels, I love walking down mountain roads to beaches where not a soul besides me steps on. The pounding of the surf chimes in with my heart, and one slows until they are in sync in my veins.

I drift, thinking of the way my eyes fill with daylight whenever I come up from a dive. I drift again, and every beach I walk on I imagine what it would look like with you walking beside the gentle break of waves, dancing in the golden sun, mask and fins in your hand, beaming back at me.

But no, I sit on a beach and stare at the yachts out on the water, captained by those who don’t see the glory in the swinging from a hammock as the humid jungle pushes against your skin, your feet stained with mud.

Ships lost in the jungle match the beat in my heart, not where they’re supposed to be, but finding a way to survive where they’re not. Standing on the stern of a sailboat, surf licking at its hull, beached with it’s prow in the jungle, I feel my blood begin to sing. My lungs buzz with adrenaline, spreading it through my heart and into my limbs until I’m finally free, finally excited about something.

My forgotten sailboat below the Annaberg ruins

I’m only trying to find my happiness, and here it is. Leave me on this beach with a pair of swim fins, a mask and a snorkel. Let me make a spear, a fire, there are the ruins of an old plantation on the hill above me, I can live there, make it my pirate’s den.

You’d love it.

But you’re not here, and you never will be.

I’m back in the light of the sun, leaning my head against the mast. I let myself forget about everything else until I’m nothing but the surf crashing in my ears, pounding in my veins, tangling its fingers in my hair. All I know is the sea breeze against my skin, the taste of sun and salt on my lips.

I miss feeling like this, I miss feeling like everything is just the way it should be.

I lose myself in a dive, in the water washing around my skin. My feet flash in the filtered light as I dive deep to swim with the fish around crops of coral and drifting fans. I let the lack of oxygen in my chest burn hard, it lets me know I’m alive. All I want is to feel alive.

Most days don’t feel like this anymore. Most days I’m watching a story unfold, a boring one, through the pages of a dreary book, through someone else’s eyes.

I want those to be my eyes, I want to feel excitement, I want to feel fear, to feel love, to feel like I am about to break, about to die, but know that I never will.

I don’t want to lose my youth.

I don’t want to lose myself.

I don’t want to leave this beach, sitting on the rails of a sailboat stuck in the jungle, the surf pounding beneath my feet, the infinite wonders of a reef just beyond the break.

In my head, I will never leave, in my head, I will never feel this way again, but I know I will feel excitement in so many more different ways.

Let me chase those moments, from the back of my ship, stuck in the jungle.

Golden Hour from my hammock in Coral Bay, St. John USVI