Drowning Within
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By: Alaa Suleiman
Nothing distances a person from reality more
than becoming lost in an invisible inner world,
absorbed in their condition,
in themselves,
in all that has yet to be done.
In those dreams shackled behind the eyelids,
in those places one longs to reach while the feet remain rooted to the same ground,
in those piled-up matters thick with the dust of stumbling,
in those rules declared by the very people who violate them,
in those restraints whose locks rust away yet never break.
In a body emptied of everything but thought,
in a mind where anxiety quietly takes root,
and questions fall like loosened strands with no answer waiting beneath them,
in that passing time
whose only change is the weather.
A long autumn tears away every tender part of our days.
A distant sky our sight can hardly reach.
Walls of contradiction closing in on our freedom to choose.
A paper roof, undone by the very first drop of affliction.
And then a wild imagination,
galloping toward no end,
filling you with a brief, blazing sense of momentum,
until you suddenly realize
you have struck the ground.
I am still drowning,
still surrendering myself to the drowning,
even though salvation lifts its hand to me, calling me toward life,
and still,
I do not rise.
