Hadalpelagic

- Poetry -

​At work today,
   I felt like a shark.
   Not so much in the
         powerful
         domineering
         mysterious
         APEX predator
         prehistoric beast
         sort of way,
         but in the
               if-I-stop-swimming-I’ll-die
                                                    way.
 
I guess I’ve known for a while now
   that I’ve been taking on too much air
   that I’ve been propelling myself upwards
      to a blisteringly bright surface
      drawn in by dazzle
      captivated by clarity
      all this time, though, I should have been
                                                     diving;
      all this time I should have been
                                                      plunging
      into the places where carcasses settle
      and the temperature plummets
      because I will never be ready
         for the surface of the sea
         until I face the crushing pressure
                           the glittering cold
                           of those Mariana Trenches
                           scarred deep across my soul.
 
I am in darkest advent
   waiting for a nirvana
   for my nothingness to detach
   from pain and to attach to…nothing
   to swim on with the abyss before me –
      I am leading an exploratory party
      into my own depths
      into my own alien territories
      into these trenches and gashes billions of years old.
 
At the bed of my sea
   I leave coral and shells
   in thanks to the primordial goo that,
   born in this darkness
   and surviving this abuse,
      ruptured through its skin
      legs and limbs
      arms and fins
      lungs and the struggle to become,
      and struggled up, up, upward toward the sun
      to be this thinking thing,
               this human.