I Answer Exactly What I’m Given

You cross me like a decision you’ve already justified. You call me a boundary, a test, a problem to be solved with stones and boots and clever knots. You give me names on maps and argue about where I begin and end. You measure me in miles, in ownership, in usefulness. You never ask what it costs me to be crossed.

I feel everything, and I keep score without numbers.

I existed long before you learned how to interrupt me. I remember before bridges.

Before ferries and borders and signs nailed into trees. Before you split me into upstream and down and pretended those directions mattered more than flow. I was a long, slow thought moving through the land. I learned the shape of every root and bone beneath me. I learned patience from the mountains and persistence from the rain. I learned how to wait without surrendering motion.

Animals once trusted me without negotiating the risk. When they drank without fear. When they trusted my surface to tell the truth. Hooves would test me once, twice, then step in. No speeches. No plans. Just attention. They knew how to read the small signs. The way my skin tightened around rocks. The way my voice changed near a drop. You traded it for certainty and called that progress.

Certainty is what you brought when you forgot how to pay attention. You stand at my edge and decide what I am before you touch me. You bring plans, confidence, a story you’re already telling yourself. You look past me toward the far shore and call that wisdom.

You turn me into a problem the moment you want a story. You forget that water has never been persuaded by confidence. When you tell the story later, I am the obstacle. The hero must cross me to reach the forest, the castle, the monster. You describe my current as dangerous, my depth as suspicious.

Sometimes you say I test the hero’s worth.

I don’t test anyone; I answer exactly what I’m given. That part makes me laugh. If you step into me angry, I push back. If you rush, I pull at your ankles. If you stare only at where you want to be, I remind you where you are.

Your surprise is always louder than your listening. If you listen — if you move with me instead of against me — I carry you. You call it magic. I call it basic courtesy.

I know who you are by how you step in. I have learned your moods by the way you enter me. The ones who hesitate too long argue theories while their feet beg for data.

The ones who charge in try to dominate what should be negotiated.

Children arrive without a strategy. Children do best because they arrive unfinished.

I have saved more children than you know.

I have swallowed more violence than confession. I have swallowed more weapons than I can count. Swords sink fast; violence is heavy with itself. They go quiet almost immediately. Guns last a little longer, sulking on their way down. I keep them with the rest of the rusting intentions at my bottom, layered like bad ideas you were sure would work.

Not everything you lose is meant to disappear. I also keep softer things. Buttons torn from coats. Hairpins dropped during nervous crossings. Letters that slipped from pockets and blurred into unreadable devotion. I hold pieces of people they didn’t mean to leave behind. I do not moralize buoyancy. I just remember where it settles.

Some of you come to me over and over, not to cross, but to practice. You step in the same place each season and pretend you’re the same person. You aren’t. Your balance changes. Your fear does. I notice immediately. I teach without instructions. I loosen a stone. I press colder at the knee. I let you fail small so you don’t have to fail loudly later. You call this learning from experience. I call it repetition with consequences.

You punish me for reacting to what you’ve done. Sometimes you poison me and then curse me for smelling wrong. Sometimes you dam me and complain that I no longer sing.

Sometimes you straighten my curves and wonder why the floods come faster. You like me best when I forget myself. You forget that I was never built for obedience. I was built for continuation.

Once, power tried to speak to me in commands. A king tried to command me to part. He shouted my name like it belonged to him. I rose that year and took three of his fields, his grain stores, and the road he liked to ride. We came to an understanding after that. He stopped giving orders. I stopped reminding him so loudly. Power only listens once it’s been made uncomfortable.

At night, memory breaks across my surface. When the moon fractures into pieces, I think about all the feet that have touched me. Bare feet, hooves, paws, wheels. Lovers holding hands too tight, slipping and laughing and pretending it was on purpose. Soldiers pretending not to be afraid, pretending the water isn’t colder than memory. Old women who never glanced ahead because they trusted their placement.

Some voices stay with me longer than bodies do. I remember arguments shouted across me. Goodbyes that echoed longer than intended. Names called that were never answered. I carry those sounds downstream until they soften enough to rest. Some grief can only be carried until it thins.

I am not moral; I am persistent. I am not cruel. I am not kind. I keep doing what I have always done, whether you’re watching or not.

I move silt. I carve stone. I make room.

If you rush me, I will correct you. The next time you come to cross me, slow down. Feel the temperature change around your calves.

Notice how the stones shift under your weight. Notice how I lean, just a little, toward the bend ahead. Nothing about my movement is accidental. It is me remembering where I am going. I will tell you where it’s safest, if you let me. I always do.

You just don’t always listen.

Tell the story however you need to survive it. When you reach the other side, you can still call me an obstacle if you want. You can say you conquered me, survived me, beat the odds. You can make yourself the center of it. I don’t mind. I’ll still be here.

I noticed every compromise you made. I felt every step. I adjusted to every choice. I carried what you trusted me with, and what you tried to forget. And I never stopped listening.