Swim Poem by Tsani Jones

She's frantic,
Bursting at the seams...
It wasn't supposed to be like this
And yet here it is, creeping in.

Doubt and Fear were the first,
Rapping at the door like
Emotional bill collectors
Asking for last months' rent.

She couldn't hide in the pretty things,
No security in the past,
No credit of the soul for the future.
And the first piece of stone slips away.

The break starts as a crack
A microscopic hairline
Where no one ever suspected
It was all so hidden, packaged so sublime.

She can feel him like the
First ray of sunlight in
Dark filled eyes, forever running
In a darkness no other had seen.

He draws closer, like a pack
Of hunters tracking their quarry
Missing no rock, turning every stone
Picking the last scent like a bloodhound.

His love is not her fear.
It is her joy.
The pinlight opens a world
Of green and shower she has never thought.

Dreams were not meant to be reality
Love doesn't exist
It's all a game, a big cosmic show
Two hearts are a sideshow, not the main attraction...

But what if she's wrong?

The crack widens
Water seeps in, fills around her ankles,
The knock is louder, gentler
Bonds she has just now recognized

Loosen for the first time
Break the seal between all
She has ever been taught
And what is about to happen.

Panic. Emotion.
Fear mixed with potency
Like a slowly melting piece
Of bittersweet on the tongue...

But the warm water rises
To the tune of a fertile mind
Discovering a new love, a new place
The swirling begins, and she feels him inside it.

Higher, stronger, passion
Takes a new hold, a warrior stance,
Concrete to hold the new creature upon,
Not cemented to as all the times before.

A fissure, deepening
Maddening, the cravings begin
Yearning like a thirsty traveler
In life's desert for the first taste of it all...

It rises to her neck,
Touches her chin, and he is in this new deluge.
Fear has washed, she floats still,
Nothing left to do but let go

And swim.