Deep End

You didn’t fall —
you swam in slow.
Wave after wave,
without a name.

Not to hold,
not to stay —
just to feel
how deep I go.

You moved like heat
through chlorined blue,
a kiss like salt,
a truth half-true.

But I —
I was never here
to be claimed
or conquered.

I came
to touch the silence
beneath the noise,
to meet the part of me
that never asked to be chosen —
only to be free.

The deep does not beg.
It does not bind.
It opens.
It holds.
And then —
it lets go.

I swam there.
I wept there.
And I rose,
salt-skinned
and sovereign.