It drowns me 12 feet underwater;
it weighs on my chest and crushes my lungs.
It would be simpler just to be left here
under the sea
where no one expects that much of me.
But I rise to the surface,
lest I waste the rare and precious fragile hours
of sunlight and oxygen
I breathe it in, I let it out...
Feel the rhythm pounding in my chest,
it is a bass drum, and the drummer never tires.
It beats, and beats, and beats,
just a muscle and some veins going,
and going, and how do they know?
It quickens at the thought.
I stand it awe of what's in my chest,
frozen and underwater.
I can't handle the pressure of living--
I have been given this tiny, delicate thing, and have no idea how to use it;
what to do with it.
Is it a toy, for my amusement? Or a tool? Who do I use it for; what needs to be fixed?
So I try a million things,
and I can't be certain that any is right.
I am so afraid to be wrong and to break it
or to waste the gift- this present- that sometimes I don't want to use it at all,
so I just stare at it in awe
of its astounding beauty and power, for what its worth...
At once such a great and delicate thing.
I hold it in my hands-
there is no cradle soft enough,
nor any venture daring enough
to be worthy of this thing I hold.
It would be easiest just to crush it
and be done with it- with the worry of it.
I hold it in my hands...
Breathe in, breathe out.
Life.
