Swimming Blind

A poem I wrote for an English project.

I’ve been swimming with my eyes closed

Through a ruthless relentless sea but the waves go soft near me

It bruised and broke the others, and that's what I couldn't see

I was swimming with my eyes closed

But I couldn’t stay blind forever.

The current pulled my eyes open, 

And the scene struck me like an arrow through the heart and for the first time in a long time

I couldn’t breathe, 

I saw what I was swimming through, the rampage, the red, the recluse in their bubbles With their eyes still closed,

I saw the fish, pulled and pressed, until their gills served only to add to the crimson Carnage crushing me,

I saw as the waves that cradled me killed them.

I felt fear, pressure, the waves urging me to close my eyes again

Whispering that it was alright, that it would be alright, that I would be alright

The ringing in my ears drowned out the yells- how had I not heard them before?

The waves pushed against me from all sides, and I was scared, and the sea was Scared, and the fish were scared 

But they could see, they had to see, and now I couldn't because I closed my eyes again

But it wasn't the same, it would never be the same, could never be the same

The image had been printed onto my eyelids so that even with them closed I could see Nothing but blue and red

I knew the waves wouldn’t hurt me, I'm not bitty, nor brutal or beastly

Not feared, nor feral, nor fish.

But the sea knows what I saw and it knows how I feel

Scared of the thousand avalanches circling me,

Scared of a sea as vast as the sky above it

As red as a crushed velvet cake, 

A sea so cruel it kills in a moment and in all the moments,

But would never touch me

I’m not a fish

But I swim, and I live, and I love, and I dream

The sea knows what I saw and I know it too,

And I see it still with my eyes now open again

Wide as the waters as the blurs of red rush past me, 

I swim through the sea with my eyes open,

A brutal sea that beats and batters,

Filled with sobs and screams,

A sea more red now than it was ever blue

A sea that scares me

And a sea that I will never close my eyes in again.

Author's Note

It's meant to be slam poetry, so the flow can be lost through just reading it.

Reviews

[Lara]

No, Nick: I don't think the flow is lost at all through just reading it. Because you've crafted the piece with pulses of alliteration and larger breaths of assonance that carries both the rhythm of poem and sea alike. Entwined as close as salt is to kelp. Which is to say, your subject and delivery are quite cohesive.
Well done. Good stuff here.