Poetry Slam Challenge 11: 🌀 Still Afloat (Original Poem)

Corked,

Mostly upright,

I’ve lain over all the World’s Seas.

My only company,

The aged singsong of distant grey intelligences that I cannot know.

When the winds and waves give me rest from their torment,

In the stillness,

My brittle wax seal cracks in the equatorial heat.

The sun’s brilliance,

And the many years,

Cause the exposed inked letters of my edges to fade.

I do not know how much time remains,

But for now my meaning and purpose,

Rest hidden in the spiral of my parchment. 

From the offending flotsam,  

I escaped with but a chip struck from my vitreous armour. 

It reflected green as it fell away from me,  

Simply disappearing in the darkness below,  

After one last brief flash. 

Then,  

It all nearly ended that summer I drifted around the entire Southern Sea. 

Were my arrival just a few weeks later,  

I’d be trapped and forever frozen. 

Years passed,  

My fears raised again in the rocky shallows guarding the New Islands. 

Yet that dread,  

Is as nothing to my desire to be found, and known. 

I’m certain it was this need alone that summoned the currents,  

To sweep me from this deafening, crashing threat.  

The waves plotting to crack me,  

Then the rocks to shred me from existence. 

With Endless Water in my sight now, 

I ask if the pain will ever end?  

To whom I do not know, 

Though somehow sensing I will be heard, 

I call out and beg to be held, 

To be allowed to breathe, 

To know today’s purest air, 

To complete my journey. 

Though how to deliver this message after so much time,  

After being so abused?  

Or when found,  

Will I be able to let go,  

To unfurl my scroll and say what must be said? 

Will I even remember the words? 

Yes…  

Yes… 

After so many years, 

Trust the currents to continue to reveal my path,  

Truth in the strength of my seemingly delicate shell, 

Trust in my spiral that locks its papery content from the flame of time,

For I helped make it,  

With Great Care… 

(Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4.)

Thanks to @prufarchy for running the PoetrySlamChallenge, and to everyone who appreciates and supports the development of other's skills! The details and rules for the latest PoetrySlamChallenge can be found here!

Other Original Poems;

• The Honey in the Pain
• Little Reminders, Big...
• The Other Side
• Wet Soil
• Glitches in the Blueprint of Our Universe
• Triggers Triggered 
• What Was It All For?
• Marshalled Mentality
• To The Corrupt... 
• Elevation Mutation
• Alliteration Analysis
• Weight of Words 

Thanks For Your Attention and Support!

Melech ben Chaya מלך בן חיה, @inphiknit