Drowning Lesson Poem by ammar azam

Drowning Lessons/Adventures in
Depression
- - -
I had the drowning dream again.
It goes like this: my eyes close
and I start to sink.
The cold comes quickly. It doesn't
warm
like they say it should. Instead the
ice punctures my skin,
empties me out, and starts to carry
me down.
I am swallowing an ocean that
tastes of failure and sadness,
some kind of sick morose
reflection of myself. I am
cold salt screaming. Sometimes it's
like I can't wake up.
(Sometimes it's like I don't want
to.)
And I know I should be able to swim
but the pressure
nine hundred feet down is getting
to me.
And the current is dragging me
further
from safety, crackling and bursting
and crushing and
I would be seasick if I wasn't
already diseased.
I think my bones are going to
break.
There are others here too - but
they don't seem to see me.
They know how to swim, they know
how to make peace
with the waves, they can talk to fish
and laugh and breathe and,
oh god, I think. They look so happy.
I am drowning
but I can see everyone else around
me breathing.
But I'm not even trying to swim
anymore; just letting it take me
to drown. And I know that I wouldn't
mind
if it did take me over, because I
know somehow
that I will never be able to breathe
underwater.
You could take the water away but
you wouldn't find me -
only the sickness that had me in
the first place.