Today I woke in the d e p t h s of the ocean.
I opened my eyes.
It was like they were closed.
Thick, seeping, cold, black d a r k n e s s ,
forcibly embracing me from behind
I opened my mouth to scream.
It was like my vocal chords had been c u t .
Bubbles of air popped desperately out of my mouth
empty, useless, oxygen
I moved my arms.
They were heavy as pale sacks filled with thousands of metal beads,
sludging around in the a b y s s
I listened.
The silence was so loud it screamed my thoughts into a head-shaped megaphone.
I felt my heart pound out every painful b e a t
I was shrinking with the pressure,
pressing down on me like a wine-press on all sides,
turning my skin into t e a r s
Emotions picked at my bones like little silver scavenger fish,
blind to truth and light
I fell to my knees.
Everything was slow,
slowing and slowing
the more I wanted it to go
faster and faster
Sediment of history, ashes, feces, d e a t h ,
crumpled at my knees
I cried.
Too bad the tears are invisible,
blending into the salty atmosphere
with no recognition to be found
A shadowy b l a c k form rested on the floor in front of me.
I stared at it,
a sense of dreadful familiarity
The c a r c a s s of something once beautiful and living,
rotting
decomposing
fading
fed on by the bottomest of the bottomest creatures of the ocean
E m p t y . Carcass.
It's the shadow of the future of my soul,
dying at the b o t t o m of the ocean,
what I can become down here while refusing to ackowledge truth and love
I breathed.
And oxygen rushed in my nose,
fell down my throat
embraced my lungs
soaked into my muscles
rubbed my heart
Was I f r e e ?
Suddenly I realized what I should've been hating all along,
the cold
the darkness
the weight
the chosen death of my soul
But I had a choice...I s w a m
Up and up, moving my arms in new, synchronized dance,
reaching for the brightest light
for my own water sunrise
And as the warmth stroked my face,
the light burned my eyes,
my fingertips b r o k e the surface
I took my first life breath.
And I saw your face.