You Must Touch the Seafloor Before Swimming to Shore
Slammed head first into rock bottom
Lungs filled with water,
Ocean pulled over my head,
Laid down and slept for seven days
Where it’s far too deep to see the stars
Black seaweed hair waving in the tide
With a push off the rocks, I am
Launched upwards
To one day burst through waves
To gasp at cold air that prickles pruned skin
To let my hair drip and stick to my forehead
I beat on
To a distant
blurred horizon,
in thick mist and full of promise.
