I thrash in the restless tide,
the surface slipping farther from my grasp.
My breath scatters into bubbles,
and the sea folds me into its silence.

Through a wavering veil of liquid glass,
I glimpse you,
a figure bent and trembling with the current,
your hand stretching toward me.

Hope flickers like a fragile flame underwater.
I rise, desperate for its light.

But when I break the surface,
my heart splinters into shards
for you do not lift me from the deep.
Instead, you lay your burdens in my arms,
stones that drag me under.

Unseeing, you leave me
to sink with my extinguished hope.