Bent like a sapling,
In the wind of my imagination.
I have been cast off to the ocean,
Where I flounder
With each page that washes by.
Oh the irony of
The swimmer's tale
You'll die if you don't breathe,
But you'll drown if you do.
I turned to the treading water,
Walking along the sea's bright margins.
Inhaling the salty metaphors.

I fear the white roar,
Underneath the lapping sapphire sheets.
Raging in the silence of the sun-struck afternoons.

I turn the pages,
And read the words.
Time, like the tides of an ocean
Goes in and out,
Where seagulls shriek across the arid green waves eroding the coasts;
Is the alarm that blares across
The four walls of my room.
And like half-moons
My eyes slid open
To witness the limits
Of my only peace.

As a child, I built paper boats
Out of discarded poems,
Words I could never speak out loud,
Letters of my harsh reality.
I would set them a sail,
In a bucket of water
Where I painted the bottom blue
To mimic the ocean.
A phantom wish, to drown my pain.

Still to this day, I hang my head low,
And clutch...