I used to look up at the surface
With yearning in my eyes
The light of the sun above
Was shattered to pieces
By the choppy waves overhead
The scattered glow flashed in my eyes
Disorienting me
I could hardly remember what it looked like
But whenever I tried to swim up
To breach my head above the waves
And get a good look
The rigging of the shipwreck beneath me
Wrapped around my ankles
And dragged me back down

This useless, cumbersome ship
That I used to sail into paintings
It was slow and it was ugly
Its black sails were tattered
And perforated with holes
The steering wheel gave me splinters
When I tried to guide its course
But together we crossed these waters
The wind through the holes in its sails
Sounded like war cries to me
The splinters in my palms
Were kindling for the fire under me
This ship made me create

But the longer we sailed
The worse her condition got
Her belly grazed the rocks around lighthouses
Chipping the wood away
Until she sprung her first leak
Then another, then another
And soon she was filling up with water
And sinking
As she sank below the surface, I mourned her
But I was never the captain
I did not want to go down with her
I jumped ship and tried to swim away
But land was miles out of reach
So I was pulled down, too

I gulped a lungful of air before I sank
And I held it for years
The air became stale in my lungs
And I forgot what fresh wind tasted like
Smelled like, felt like
Over the years
The oxygen was cycled through my body
Into my bloodstream, then used, then lost
Until there was nothing left
But the lingering feeling
That I might deserve another breath
I deserved to breathe
I released the carbon dioxide from my lungs
And as I watched the bubbles swim to the surface
I wished to God that I could go with them

And then I saw a boat, not too far away
It had been there for years, watching me
But I had never noticed until then
I waved my arms, trying to hail it
Begging in my mind for it to see
That I was yearning for its help
It sailed closer
I reached my hands out toward it
And hands reached down beneath the water
I hoped they would pull me out
I wished they would drag me up to the surface
But instead of taking my hands
They handed me a knife

I turned it over in my hands
Looking at the marble handle
I ran my fingers along the blade
And pressed my fingertip against its edge
It was sharp
I hadn't seen a tool like this in years
I hadn't seen tools in years
I tried to swim up to the surface
To ask what it was for
But the shipwreck’s rigging wrapped around my ankles
And dragged me back down
And then I knew
I understood

I gripped the knife’s handle in my hand
And sawed at the ropes that bound me
I cut through one, and then another
The labor made me weak
My muscles ached for oxygen
My lungs screamed for air
As I furiously cut at the ropes
Each one several inches thick
As I cut them off
They sunk down to the shipwreck
Bidding me their goodbyes
And a part of me was sad to see them go
They had been my only companions for years
But the sun overhead called out to me
The ship above called out to me
And I cut the last one
And I could finally swim up to the surface

The air tasted like poetry