I rise.
My head bursting above the cold ocean I’ve been drowning in for years.
Murky waters give way to air.
I breathe deeply for the first time in eons,
Floating
All the muck, and silt, and grime left behind me
In a way
My buoyancy is the filth
My moment of breaching
Made sweeter by the mire in my lungs
I cough, up comes black tar, and slime that clings to my fingers.
The water tugs at me
Fibers dig into my back
Dragging, and yearning for me
The sea coils, decaying and darkness
Unseen when you swim beneath its surface.
But
In this moment of resilience
I see the sea for what it is.
Toxic and destructive.
It calls to me.
Less out of a promise of power but more that I lack it.
That I am nothing without the struggle of the swim
The cold icy troughs, and currents
Black goo coating my insides
But in this moment
I am weightless
I rise
Until I am standing
The oil spreading beneath me.
And spreading out I see...
Loneliness
Greif
Anxiety
Jealousy
Anger
Greed
Selfishness
Swirling faces made of pitch, eyes of coals, grasping fingers weak in their blindness, currents dictating, razing the sea, dragging all along for the ride...
And I see
The ocean does not rely on me anymore than I require it.
This mass of pain made solid is but a thing, burnt out, exhausted, not worth fostering, energy, or time
I can be above the corruption
Then, out of the muck, the mire
I rise into the sky