Swimmer

You’re trapped.

Your head is in chains, 

muscles in pain, 

you’re colorblind. 

Your arms overreach,

your scent is bleach, 

it’s cold. 

In the middle of summer,  

you’re stranded in winter 

with a splinter in your ear. 

You’re a zombie.

Skin dried, 

hair fried, 

always hungry. 

Then you’re back to the grind, 

black line glued to your mind, 

drowning helplessly,

fighting an army, 

fighting yourself. 

Flipping and flapping, 

and breaking, and turning 

in circles that never end. 

You’re alone. 

But out there, out of air, 

you’re breathing. 

And when you go with it, 

and flow with it, 

listen to the rhythm

and find your faith,

you’re not confined—you’re free. 

You’re a wizard with toes on skipping stones, 

your soul in wafting zones. 

You dance upstream, and you dream the supreme. 

You’re effortless fire,

working out and working in. 

‘Cause others were made to fear the deep, 

but this girl is here to find it.