The Drowning

A silent struggle: unseen weight, dissolving words, the ache of drowning alone.

There’s a kind of hurt
that never screams.
It whispers,
threads itself through the spine,
settles in the throat
until silence feels safer
than sound.

You look fine.
You show up.
You nod, you smile.
You become fluent
in the art of appearing
almost okay.

But beneath the surface,
the water keeps rising,
clothes heavy with memory,
grief a stone
in your pocket.

You rehearse the moment
someone might ask
what’s wrong,
though a part of you
already knows
they won’t.

You try to speak,
but the words dissolve,
always too big,
too small, too much,
yet never enough,
for something
this consuming.

So you go still.
You wait.
You hope someone will notice:
the dimming light,
the quiet shift,
the slow unravel.

You fight for breath,
for escape,
for anything to hold you up,
as the water rises.

But no rescue comes
in a room
where no one knows
you’re drowning.