Jungle Waters

JUNGLE WATERS

5 / 27 / 2026

The engine lets out a deep hum. 

Simultaneously something inside me begins to hum too. 

The call comes from a repressed place deep within and like a rushing jungle river, pours through every vessel of my body. 

As it gains speed, it searches for the doorway out. 

Rushing and crashing against the river rocks. 

Pouring over onto shore. 

It begs to expand. 

Rio Abajo Rio. 

The river below the river. 

She hears the plane engine hum and she wants to fly too. 

My hand aches to feel pen against paper. 

My hips ache to dance. 

And my mouth to sing. 

For now, I must suck the flowing river dry. 

Too scared to fly. 

And yet, reprieving a small amount. 

Just enough to pour into writing this. 

My hand effortlessly glides pen against paper. The words pour out, no longer inside of me. 

My hips loosen and my heart picks up the beat, freeing the best parts of me. 

As I hum and sing, it ripples through my body, massaging the depths within me. 

I expand, I release. 

I write, I dance, I sing, I create. 

I rip open the flood gates. 

I free myself, those next to me and those to come. 

Rio Abajo Rio. 

The River Below The River. 

She hears the plane engine hum. 

And she takes flight too. 

Rio Abajo Rio - Written by Amanda Crocitto.

I’ve been writing for as long as I’ve known how to string words together. Back when the sentences were mostly nouns and the words were written way too big for the lines. 

When I was younger, it was where I romanticized the boys I loved and wrote about all of the rules I hated most.

As I got older, I realized adult journaling is mostly just using bigger words to talk about the exact same things.

Although somewhere along the way, being that in touch with myself stopped feeling cool. So sometimes there were months where I wouldn’t write a thing, but I always found my way back.

Eventually, I fell totally in love with writing because it felt like one of the only places I could be completely unhinged, honest, dramatic, romantic, contradictory, hopeful, jealous, grateful, heartbroken, and - ugh, so weird all at once.

For a moment in time I didn’t have to act like I had it altogether. I could just be real. 

I think Rio Abajo River may have been one of the first poems I ever wrote. It poured out of me on a flight from Phoenix to Denver. I remember feeling embarrassed the person next to me might see it, but the urge to write was stronger than the fear.

During takeoff, I could feel my body come alive. Like I wanted to run as fast as the plane and lift off. Like somewhere inside me, the same power existed too.

Back then, I could feel the river in me, but I was still scared to let it move. So it ended with the line “Just enough to pour into writing this.” 

It wasn’t until a year later, that I added the rest. Because I actually started to feel what it was like to freely express myself in the world, not just in the safety of my journals. 

And I found it to be just the thing I was seeking most from life.

I think a lot of us are starving to feel our own lives again.

Not perform or manage them perfectly.

But actually feel them.

And I think many of us have gotten so good at “doing life right” that sometimes we forget what it feels like to actually be inside of it.

Ironically, I think this disconnect impacts our health more than we realize.

Not because green juice and workouts don’t matter, but because the body responds to truth, safety, expression, presence and feeling alive.

This is the deeper connection I’ve slowly been trying to help people remember over time.

Which is why I started creating spaces centered around expression, creativity, honesty, movement, and connection.

Because this might actually be what you’re craving most.

And who knows, your body might like it a whole lot too :)