I swim

I swim
and swim
and swim

no splash 
no sound 
just glide
like birds 
just shimmer 
like mirrors 

this peace 
this relief 
I’m airborne 

I’m free

I have discovered 
that if you 
have one thing 
one way for 
a long time 
then add or
remove something else 
that everything about 
it seems different 
be it plant
bed even myself 
it doesn’t take 
much for most
things to change 
like a stone 
tossed into pond
it eventually belongs 
forever it ripples 

My last 
breath will
be a
written word 
for the 
soul and 
no other 
knows when 
it is 
finally over 

Once a planet 
then a comet
finally a chunk
streaking across sky
slamming into stone 
without so much 
as a whisper 
and then disappearing 
becoming something else 
a single silent 
part of the 
thing stopping me 

And there right 
there’s the gap 
even the gaffe
some might say 
no man’s land 
called a friendship 
nobody wants that 
anymore people want 
sex or love 
but friendship that 
lonely long bridge 
between the two 
has been washed 
out by the 
flash floods known 
as selfish immediacy 
whatever happened to
marinating and percolating 
simmering and aging 
the gap is
still there but 
now it’s avoided
a trail too
treacherous for most 
to even consider 
or to traverse 
much less enjoy