The Wound

You thrash against the waves. Arms catch wreckage and lash it together with trembling fingers: planks, anything that floats. You drag yourself up, lungs burning. Air hits like a slap, but the raft drifts, and shore will not arrive. Your legs dangle in dark water while your mind invents the deep. A current brushes your ankle. Teeth. Your knees pull to your chest.

The Path

You grip tighter until the wood slips. You sink. Water fills your mouth, takes your eyes, and the dark has no edges, and your lungs are screaming, and there is no bottom, there has never been a bottom— Your feet find stone. The shock of contact. The insult of it. All those years lashed to wreckage while the water waited at knee-depth. Shame rises hot in your cheeks. Let it. You are standing now. The ground does not care how long it took you.

The Shadow

You stood. Others do not. The Steadfast grips shifting wood. His fingers whiten, fusing to the planks. He touched bottom once, years ago, in calmer water. His foot struck stone, and for one moment he felt his own weight, nothing holding it but him. His knees buckled; his spine protested a load it had never known. He pushed off hard and never let himself sink again. Now he builds his life on the raft, expanding the wreckage he refuses to leave. His shoulders fuse to the wood; joints forget how to yield. He dies fused to the wood, lungs full of air. His feet, six inches from the bottom. ❖ The Tireless touched bottom once. Her heartbeat, suddenly audible, was more than she could bear. The moment her feet found stone, silence became roar, self became unbearable. She has not stopped moving since. Not towards anything – just swimming. Her arms know only the rhythm that keeps stillness at bay. She passes floating wood but does not reach for it. To grip would be to pause. She drowns mid–stroke, in water that never rose past her waist.

The Cut