Bath water

Plunge.

Submerged.

Welcomed, a cocoon of comfort. Murky clear
water like thin fog. A blurred bleed of light
ebbs through.
Clouded radiance.

Sounds are muffled; distant, hushed.
Smothered.

I float, lingering
in the limbo between two worlds.

Strands of hair are gently adrift, suspended
and vacant, like a life paused.

All at once the change is sudden.
Panicked heart pounds.
The bounding beast beats its restraints, frantic for escape.
A fragile bird, caged.

Vivid strands of hair creep,
reaching, grasping, clasping, pulling.
Constricting,
spindling fingers of death.

Crude weight compresses
my chest,
threatens to extinguish that
last…
held…
breath…

Smash.

I burst the surface, gasping.
Crumbled lungs heave heavy, hungry breaths.
Skin is wrinkled like the age it has not yet known, and death it has almost touched.
The frenzied beast blazes on in its cage.

Author's Note

Please let me know what you think - good and bad!

I'd love to know how my poem made you feel and what you thought of whilst reading it, and I'll happily answer any questions about the choices I made eg. imagery, structure

Reviews

[Rene Salinas]

Favorite question asked so I will gladly answer it. How did your poem made me feel? As if something in there is subdued and repressed, something that has is and will be a consequence of an internal vortex, and that something is faceless yet constant in its progress. That you have become the grail that holds confusion and that some of you has forfeited as you have been forced to assimilate this something even pushed to fake it yours. That all this force is making you be the master and the servant all at once. And that you have invited all to come inside an have a taste of the shackling thoughts.

Granted there was a whole lot of hyperboles running wild in my description which I hope you take in with humour but after all you did ask althought rhethorically and I was delighted to oblige.

Thankyou

[Charlotte]

Thankyou so much! I'm really glad you saw such depth in my poem and that the conflict came across.

[Kent Long]

Hi Charlotte:

Very nice imagery that engages the senses. That takes good writing skill. It starts off with a serene feeling and suddenly turns into a panic attack. The contrast is stark. Only thing I wonder is what changed the mood. That's a good description of free floating anxiety and if that was shat you wanted to convey it was well done, but it might be more effective the reader got a sense of what caused the change. GOOD WORK
Thanks also for your nice review of "Graff Writer's Blues"