Breaking Capacity Poem by Rhianna McElhinney

and I'm launched into the unforgiving waves,
Proficient at swimming but legs bound,
Wilful, steel lungs but mouth open
And alas I float in purgatory
Mind swelling from the pressure of gravity,
when did water become so heavy?
When did my legs, which once danced
freely in the shallows become stiff, futile,
dead anchors not so heavy that I rest at the bottom
But enough to leave me stranded.
Forgotten.
How many bodies float around me,
how many souls poison these already toxic waters?
This aqueous land overwhelms me,
Water pulls itself down my throat, burns my nose,
And steel rusts far too quickly for me to
catch my breath.