Q4 PORTFOLIO Honors Literary Magazine | Page 12

Sailor

When I cry I become a sailor in the vast blue sea

alone in an unending ocean of blue,

Fighting just to stay alive,

Struggling to keep my head above the water

As wave after wave violently clash against me and drag my body across the ocean floor.

As if I were a rag.

I struggle to swim to the top, water comes from high up above and down below.

Creatures of predatorial nature creep below to where my eyes cannot see

They catch whiffs of my blood and silently, majestically surround me for the hunt.

I fight to stay alive, with no purpose but of that to live

Until finally my cold, bruised body cannot fight anymore.

It is surrendered unmovable by the freezing cold from which it suffers.

My lips are blue and every time I breathe my lungs feel like they are breathing in broken glass

My muscles are sore and raw, worn out from the struggle to stay above where the air can reach me.

I am a sailor in the eye of a storm, and I have fallen from my ship into the eye of a hurricane.