Deep End

One of the scariest fears of mine is dying by drowning. 

It's also the way that my family taught us how to swim. 

Little was I aware that my coming of age swim test

was going to happen when they tossed me into the 

part of the pool that I could no longer ballerina tippy-toe my way to safety.

My legs beating the waters like drums. 

Arms swinging like a windmill.

My lungs, regurgitating water.

I'm scared to death thinking to myself this can't be how I leave life. 

I make it to the pool wall breathing with relief in my chest. 

My cousin was screaming, "Nigga, it ain't even that deep! Whatchu’ trippin for?!" 

It ain't even that deep…

I had my first, real relationship years later. 

I thought to myself, 

"I think they may be the one" with love in my mind and desire in my heart. 

Little was I aware that this was my coming of abuse story. 

They pushed me into pain and stigma knowing I couldn't swim in choppy waters. 

I swallowed the salt from the ocean of trauma my lips caught as they lunged for air. 

Trying to hold on to remnants of the SS Relation Ship as it sinks beyond recognition,

Even with a floating, make-shift, life raft to prevent drowning, 

the chills from their midnight ego made it no less excruciating.

In this colored version of the Titanic, they managed to be the Rose to my Jack, 

in other words, 

the both of us could have survived if they weren’t so selfish.

My legs beating the waters like drums.

My arms, swinging like windmills.

My heart, regurgitating hurt from its strings.

I'm scared to death thinking to myself this can't be how it's going to be. 

I washed up on the shore of my conscious; emotionally battered and bruised. 

They looked me in my eyes and asked me, 

"Baby, why are you crying? It's not even that deep."

Three years later, my closet broke open and let the light shine on the fears of my existence

to individuals who weren’t ready to know that unicorns existed among them.

In that moment, I realized why God would rather hide in the skies than to live among humans.

Once again, I found myself in the resemblance of trauma.  

My legs got tired of beating the drums of the water, 

My arms no longer swung like windmills, 

And my mind started to burn from the lack of oxygenated space.

As I would lay lifeless at the bottom of the anxious ocean

Looking at their reflection from the surface of the water,

They would fix their words in subliminal patterns to intend that, 

"It was never that deep."

But deep it was and always has been. 

Deep is the fact that I feel when the pressure of the tension chokes me breathless. 

Deep is the peace that I reach for like the oxygen above the surface tension of the water. 

Deep is the fear bumping in my chest when I'm sinking 

in the depression and anxiety as if the weights are at my feet, you see. 

Jumping off of slave ships was a form of escape 

but the escape became numbing tradition believing we 

can swim to freedom if our trauma unlocks it. 

Too many times too often I guess people thought 

that trauma functioned like life jackets, 

But it jacks our lives and leaves us heavy inside sinking

to the bottom screaming at the surface with our last breath. 

Funny growing up how they told us that black folk don't swim 

because we stay drowning in depression. 

Stay drowning in sorrow. 

Stay drowning in generational curses that we stayed afloat 

through but never learned how to swim through. 

And those very people who row through the casualties of the Titanic 

sank by faulted icebergs have the everlasting audacity to stare at you 

while you're trying to survive and demand you to, 

"Stop being so sensitive because it ain't even that deep."

If you've been taught how to float above the surface, 

your back will always face the depth of my pain. 

So, of course, from your point of view, it ain't even that deep.

Even if you had a submarine to test how deep my ocean goes, 

Your body can only take so much pressure before it 

imploded from the depth of my being. 

But yes, it's easy for you to ask me why I'm trippin’ 

when your knowledge of my ocean is surface level. 

Even if you knew how to swim, 

You couldn't even journey past the sandbar because my rip tides 

have ripped through even the strongest of ships. 

My ocean doesn't come with measurement marks. 

It doesn't come with a tub drain. 

It doesn't prepare you for the dips life leaves beneath your feet. 

It just looks you in the eye from the surface as your drowning to peril and asks you,

"What’s the matter? It’s not even that deep."