Hearth (All I ever wanted was to be able to swim)
All I ever wanted was to be able to swim. I wanted to swim because no one could ever have taught me to swim. It was only me and mum – taking footsteps along the coastline, dipping ourselves into the cold water, moving our legs and arms like baby frogs. There mustn’t have been anyone else, there mustn’t have been because you could only hear the gushes of wind. It wasn’t that my friends weren’t interested, or that I lived on the other side of the earth, but that they were in absence, they were in absence from it all. There was silence then, walking summer’s golden beds into the winter’s dark – straying off into the water as it touches my thighs, it freezes my pulse; as the dawn is arriving. The glaciers can only ever be seen from a distance. The naturality of every season was engulfed by air, it corroded the rocks; I bled from my knee, down to my toe. My reflection was semi-permanent and mirror like, the birds were little croaking staples above the sky. I had drowned in their noise – singing away: skies are pouring, my tears are sowing beneath my skin; unravel the silk, unpoison the milky clouds, make me beneath a shed, wooden crafted you – write my name in lead, Hearth, all I ever wanted was to be able to swim.