Descending

Light fractures through the dark water, a thousand golden threads pooling at the surface. I chase them downward, always down, my lungs learning the grammar of pressure.

The kelp sways like old arguments, back and forth, resolving nothing. Somewhere above, the world continues without apology, without pause.

I am becoming something smaller here— salt-worn smooth, my edges forgetting what it meant to be sharp. The current carries my name away.

But look: bioluminescence in the midnight deep, creatures writing light in the darkness, a conversation I was never meant to understand, yet I listen.