Young Writers Society

failing to drown

Every day blends in to the
same everyday stew —
too good to be called
bad and too bland to be asked
for the recipe when someone tastes it

ladled frequently out into bowls of time slots
which hoped for more and expected less.

There is no pursuit left un-hanging by the
self-aware Dunning-Kruger sitting on hills.

It (safely) frantically struggles
for balance by finding more hills
to rest on when vertigo is induced
by the sight of mountains
far away and the smiling,
marred faces on their tops.

(Safely) because a ragged breath
could signal a rapid death
into a lower state, a slower rate
so it fails to drown.

It thrashes about, the poor thing
gnashes its teeth and shouts
but only in shallow waters where
it’ll fail to drown in anything
of worth.

All the words in the world cannot pick up
the bits left behind by these recurrent
thoughts that have smashed the insides
of its head like strong currents driving
a ship into the rocks, leaving it lessened
less Sisyphus, more boulder.

Stories half-read and written
embarked upon to forget this fact
and then forgotten themselves
are strewn across its mind
and life.

When it stands on the bridge’s railing
wavering with the wind, waiting for nothing
it still likes to imagine though, that
someone is glad that it’s failing to drown.