Forced Under

The river does not ask
how you fell in
only takes you,
cold and certain,
pulling at your lungs
like a quiet demand.
Branches lean in,
witnesses with trembling hands,
while the current wraps your ribs
in a tightening hush
a language of weight,
of breath stolen before it forms.
You learn the sound of silence
pressed beneath the surface,
how panic blooms like thunder
with nowhere to go.
You kick, you claw,
but the water is patient,
and it knows how to hold.
There, in the dim green blur,
you meet the heaviness
not just of water,
but of everything
you tried not to carry.
And still
something in you refuses
to dissolve.
A fracture of light,
a memory of air,
a stubborn, flickering yes
you rise.
You break through
not into peace,
but into ache
lungs burning,
body shaking,
the world louder
than you remember.
Because survival is not gentle.
It is the gasp,
the trembling,
the fight to stay
when leaving would be easier.
And yet
you stay.
You learn the rhythm again:
in, out
not just breath,
but choice.
You become river-shaped
strong where it matters,
soft where it heals,
carving kindness
from stone.
And though the current still moves,
though the depths still call,
you stand in the shallows
with something unbroken
a quiet knowing
that even forced under,
even undone,
even lost in the weight
we rise above it all.
                               
                   ~  Cara King~