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