Submerged

As I fall I become smaller,
But this isn’t Wonderland.
I suppose I should mind,
But instead I gaze
At pale hands.
How strange they are.
Those short fingers
Must be mine.
“Wiggle” I think.
I have no sense
That their movement
Belongs to me.
The emptiness,
Is too great to span.

In the distance,
I can hear wet sounds
I still have nightmares
Of being trapped
Under the surface.
I was one and a half
When I sank slowly,
To the bottom
Of a sunlit pool.
I was too young
To know death,
But the lonely,
Underwater world
Terrified me.
I believed I was lost
Forever.

The memories of drowning
Are as disconnected
As my stubby fingers.
I don’t grasp
Their meaning
As they flow past.
Even long ago,
When first submerged,
I didn’t flail.
Now I know to drift
In the emptiness
I’ve become.