Implosion

    Have you ever found yourself so deep underwater and disoriented to the extent that you have lost a feel for which direction will lead you to the assurance of the surface?

    Perhaps you have temporarily forgotten that a vital boundary resides somewhere, passively awaiting your need for oxygen and light. There is no such thing as humidity in such a dimension.

    During a sudden and startling lapse of memory, the surface has in fact ceased to exist. And you are simply and stiflingly condensed by the pressure of the sheer depth.

    You sense an overwhelming urgency to become one with the liquid substance that embraces you, molding into your every curve and line like wily putty. You have gone missing.

    Without light, you will eventually lose your sense of sight.

    Lacking stimulation, your nerve endings will fail to remind you when the act of touch or unintentional contact is taking place. Physical matter will grow scarce. Parched.

    You will not be able to confirm your suspicions that distance is gradually stretching you across its medieval torture device. Common sense is absentminded beneath the boundaries of the sea floor.     

    You find yourself in an ocean beneath an ocean.

    Layered, muffled, and unreal, your salt settles.

    Your minerals lose their glimmer and disband like the escapees of pesticide’s harmful intent.

    There is no color in this place; you are tasted by your surroundings- used and discarded.

    The heart beats with the current of the subtle waves, and while you are consciously unaware of this fact, your body lives as a bloodless algae. You ride at the mercy of a mystery.

    A sunken vessel with a new identity.

    This is transition. In the womb of the earth. You will dawn again, someday.

 

10/9/14

Jennifer Burnside