The Sea Inside My Sleep Poem by Hari Msonda

These dreams arrive like rough seas my convulsions rocking my sails
as though Poseidon hungers for wreckage.

Night after night
I am dragged beneath them,
pulled through currents
I cannot name
and cannot outrun.

I wake with salt on my tongue,
lungs aching from battles
fought entirely in the dark.

They seize my breath,
drag light from my chest,
and set fire to hope
while I am still holding it.

Morning comes anyway.

The horizon offers itself
in pale gold apologies,
but my hands still tremble
from the storm.

And somewhere beneath the smoke,
beneath the wreckage,
beneath the sea's relentless wanting,
a small stubborn ember remains

refusing,
even now,
to drown.