too early to call morning,
too late to call night

it’s the suffocating gasp
when

you swear,
you swear

you’ve never breathed harder
in all your life,

you’re drowning

in fears

of your own creation
that your heart feeds your eyes

an illusion
now blurred, in the distance,

something of your own creation,

salt water is blinding,
you’re binding
sea urchins and stonefish-
thoughts
to the walls of your mind,

scales and pebbles
glimmer in the light,
scales and pebbles
poison when hidden in plain sight,

a mere manifestation of
the sea urchins and stonefish-
thoughts,
you mosaic and pasted together.

You can’t exchange
pain for beauty
nor subjugate fear
with denial,

there’s a key to every mind
and it’s buried somewhere inside
you,

you’ll soon breath

without trying

and float in this murky water,

when you notice
you can’t escape
the ocean of uncertainty
but you can learn how to navigate it.