dark waters

4 October 2023

dark waters

i didn’t understand i was young

i didn’t realize it wouldn’t last forever

until it didn’t

now every morning i wake into grief

grief over the girl i was without

knowing: spirited, bright, electrified

grief that i never thought to love her

before she was gone

grief over a history of too scarce

soft attention

hence, grief for time

wasted on dreams not my own

suffering’s recommended resolution

is to submerge in the moment

plunge into now, then now, and still now

but this grief does not vanish

it lurks

subverted or ignored

its fin tip slices the surface

it approaches and approaches

unless i redirect the nose

sunrise: i shove its jaws away

so jointly, composed, we float

but each next morning it reemerges

to snap anew at my throat