Pool

Holding faces under water
because it’s all that we deserve.
When we can finally breath
we are told to believe
we should have drowned.
A light at the far edge of the pool
makes the water into a golden portal,
and the shadows project it all
against the walls.
Insects sing in isolated corners
at the fringes of a world we are so sure
belongs only to us.
Tree branches reach out for each other
above, blocking out the stars,
competing for the light that will return
in the morning, when we are all hungover.
Nothing is ever over, the marks we
leave behind are cut too deep.
We are the scars born out of an explosion,
never intended,
able to keep cutting, for a while, but when
we can’t it doesn’t mean we fade away.