I lie,

A shell within a shell within another.

Crash! the outer shells just rent

Asunder.

I creep,

From shadow to shadow

Waiting for my moment

My rib cage an echo chamber

My stomach feeding on its knots.

—————————–

The war,

It comes.

The war,

Inexorable.

Born of our own anxiety to drown it

We give it an immaculate conception.

Our wails,

Our silences and our prayers

Warding off the evil spirits

Serve only  to create a sense

Of things too precious to lose.

And all this time,

The women wail in the night

Their throats choking on their own fear.

—————————

The bubbles rise all around me,

But something wants to make me just stay

In this strange chlorinated limbo

Before I return to the surface.