Halle Cox
SINKING.
SWIMMING.
SINKING.
i second-guessed myself
any & every time i looked at you
this was not real, no
there had to be a way out of here
ten minutes of false happiness:
i had some pride that it was getting better, but
all of these
tears turned to forced laughter, &
cigarettes shared between fingers
didn’t believe the same
i look at you and wonder
how we both ended up here
but sometimes I don’t wonder at all
ten minutes of drowning:
the world is muffled from down here
i can feel my lungs reaching for something,
anything that i can fill myself with to feel whole again
but the waves crash thousands of times over,
the screams are silenced, &
my hands claw at the surface
maybe,
after all of this
i don’t want saving anymore
SWIMMING.
through all of the second-guessing,
loss, longing, &
glass-shattered mirrors,
i will burn the edges of me,
dry the water from my skin,
turn to ash, &
build a newfound love
a poet will rise from the fall
this is a bonfire of fury,
dead embers and melancholy
here it is,
this is not the finale you’ve been waiting for
growth is not destruction
blooming into a new spring
has never been so beautiful