The year I almost drowned
was the year I learned to swim.
I was weighed down pound by pound
and things were looking grim.
My arms flailing; began to tire
and my mouth was tasting salt,
just days ago I warmed myself by fire
and by lying on the asphalt.

Shadow stalks and kicking rocks;
irrelevant if your shoes are tied.
Checking locks and kicking rocks
get carried away by the tide.

The year I almost drowned
was the year I learned to swim.
I could view the sandy ground,
though the image was quite dim.
My head; just barely above the water
and desperately I was gasping for air,
and I could swear it was getting hotter
but the temperature was actually fair.

I’ve got currents and tides
within my mind.
And when I finally rip out my insides;
more water and waves you’ll find.

The year I almost drowned
was the year I learned to swim.
While being tossed and pushed around
I discovered I had every limb.
I could see a shoreline in the distance
it’s beaches with perfect white sand.
It seemed within an instance
I started treading steadily with each hand.

Let me make my own mistakes,
and let me learn from them.
As ice freezes over lakes,
I will harden like a gem.
.
I don't regret leaving my heart out
to get scorched, crack in the cold;
a lesson needed to sow doubt,
to make caution take a hold.
.
I've learned, I've grown
through the pains;
I am now more my own,
experience in my veins.
.
And now I don't even feel the break:
like a computer gone offline;
a reboot needed just to make
this new update truly mine.
.
I will survive, I always do -
my shipwrecks an eternal theme -
and I'll re-surface, start anew,
with new stitching along the seam.
.

Everyday is an uphill *****
—a vertical some days
—always picking up the slack;
picking up the pace.
Desperate, delusional,
acts of disgrace,
but how do you ask for forgiveness
with a struggling face?

I wish it were easier
living, that is;
I force life to be easier;
surviving, it is.

How do you tell people
you're suffocating,
when the air on the *****
is dissipating?

Every miniscule molecule
I make mine
Meanders from,
Mightily moving mountains,
To meekly maintaining mounds.
From harmlessly heeding horizons,
To heroically holding off hounds.

my emotions dread for peace
this space is so tight
I seem lifeless

why prickly numb and burning
are my toes writing a story
spare me a niddle to escape

For my fears are dead
Today I question life
Now I got my answer

Live today
Live today
Live today

(c) Olu Daniels -KUVAR

What you wanted was war
Thundering and merciless
Wanted Armageddon to roll in
So you could follow every avenging angel
Brash with bloodlust
And feel righteous in the end

I felt the shift in the atmosphere
Heard the horsemen, saw the lightning
But I had long ago grown weary
Of desperate, clashing swords

You built trebuchets
So I built walls
Studying the stillness of stones
Observing the physics of load bearing and
Force balancing and
Standing unshaken as the sky itself shatters

The onslaught was calculated
Unyielding and arrogant
But of all the accusations lobbed over the ramparts
The only ones that drew blood
Were those fashioned after my own devices
Those festering things that grew out of my nightmares
Seeded with the secrets I'd once let fall in peacetime

You've called out endlessly for my head
But I won't bleed out for you here
I've been studying the patience of water
The salty tracks quietly working their way
Through all the hard places
Out to the sea

I won't bleed out for you here
I faced the red maw that would unmake me
I spun my own stitches out of ether
And lived

Healing alone through all the pain that my heart has been broken from is probably one of the most difficult things I have survived so far.

I pick up my pen
Like it's an anchor to the living
Oh to be a fool in love with death