Depth to my Body
Mia Parola
I wanted to swim through a fountain inside myself
and kick laps around shallowed water,
allow each stroke to jet me forward but not deeper
so the tilt of my head could still fill me with easy air.
For reward I wished to erupt whimsically into the sky
from an upward faucet,
like the one that lights and spews cold fireworks into dull dusk
while I drive down Main Street Bridge.
If it were a diving board,
I would plummet myself from it,
down to be congratulated by that dancing water
who’s droplets shine like clear cut diamonds
that hit as they fall from bursts above.
When I do jump into the water of myself,
no light show greets me at the surface.
the splash I send into the sky is lost, maybe nonexistent
against the open waters that meet me
and reshape my body under a new murk.
I’m not prepared for the lack of lap lanes to help me forward
and begin to sink down into myself,
falling through the ocean as a diver.
Lost in drowning panic, it’s easy to forget how to breathe
from the tank that is my lifeline as I fall
like a tossed boulder until the final depth.
The seafloor catches me where I never wanted to reach,
sixty-five feet down and alone with myself
almost. Sunlight oddly sends scattered rays all this way down
that swim with the water as they reflect from sand.
No fountain spews artificial bursts of color,
but patches of neon coral are explored by schools of fish
I hadn’t known could exist
but am close enough to swim along with, learn the ways of.
Each time bubbles gush from my mouth,
I watch them travel up desperately
and race to spew at the surface, but I make no struggle upward.
I am not sunk but have gained power to beat out my own waves
in every direction of my body and mind, every inch I can possibly extend itself.