I pinch my nose -

my face dips beneath a veil of water.

Pressure grows deep in my chest, 

slowly and securely. 

Baptism surrounded by bubbles in this bathtub in Bath.

Blow a breath, in and out, a robbery of air. 

Submerged, I focus on the pressure building. 

(Funnily enough, I usually do the opposite.)

Breathe out, breathe in, 

pinch nose, back under. 

I used to go swimming in rivers when I was little. 

Thrown off bridges - 

my body would hit the bottom

and I’d think I’d died with the wind knocked out of me. 

The pressure releases,

a whale breaches the sea,

I hear my parents arguing. 

Again. What’s new? 

Breathe out, breathe in, 

pinch nose, back under. 

Everything is blurry, my sight, hearing and smell. 

Here I lie, a human submarine, thinking it over.

No regard for time, 

or life, or death, or marriages - 

here I can suffocate, out of choice,

out of mindlessness, 

thinking for the same reason a whale swims onwards

out of control and want and power and necessity.