Sinking
By Leen Mbarak
Floating limbs floating mind
Withered soul, crimson sky
Painted waves breaking over me
Over sea, under sea, eyes facing the heavenly
Hot against my skin, paper thin, peeling off painfully
Pain for me, unhindered internally
Eyes up, eyes up searching desperately
Blurry blurry fluid in the sockets mixing with the boiling sea
Rage rage waves break but no fire warming me
Numb and cold yet I float, hundred salt, bitter mold
Bitter breath, sour soul, paint on canvas over wood but under soil
Beauty of a smooth stone housing bone, housing brick,
Broken sticks fixing me, straightening my entity, holding me up-holding their expectations, anticipation to fall apart to part from them only partially
Just to breathe from under dirt, stacks of hurt Buried 6 feet near the core being dug with a bent spoon
Shriveled prune, in a grave, under the Midday moon
Too soon, too soon, gone with the waves, after noon
Of headaches, lone, aching bone
And here I float in burning water but no water melting rock, hard, unmoved, rough skin not scarred
Corrosion of life forming me, forcing me into conformity
This scarecrow is the product of their pressure and I am but fabric held on stick
Stick-Stuck inside the 4 by 4 walls sticking to the paper rules on every wall
And the mirror with broken shards stabbing the reflection in the frame
Flame, flame! Flame on skin
I float on flame, insane, in pain, fish feeding on me, on what remains
Of me at sea, out of sight, out of reach, out of mind, out of hope, out of love, out of rope
To pull me back to the shore of normalcy,
Normally, I’d have swam back to my sanity
But I find that in my mind,
No sanity is left for me
Left of me, in the ocean, right of sea
East wind, homesick sailer swimming in their own melancholy
No compass in hand, no future planned
Mind unmanned, disobeying command,
I drifted willfully, will not fulfill their destiny
Floating limbs, drowning heart
Cannot stand on burning sand
Cannot float in boiling sea
Cannot sit, Cannot stand,
Cannot stand
The life of me.
