Not many words escape

The growing pressure

That holds my lips

Closed more and more

The longer I stay here

Silently wading

into my own solitude,

Waves

Of numbness

Crashing over me

And as I’m baptized

In the waters

Of indifference

That have tried to pull

Me under since I could

Crawl to their shores

I’m consumed by

The memory of being

Recklessly drunk in Lake Mendota

Past midnight

On a night with no stars

Or moon illuminating Mendota at all.

And looking ahead

I couldn’t tell

The sky from the water

As they merged into

An intimidating darkness

Covering everything

It touched

And as I felt it encroaching,

Like a fog stretching its fingers

Over its first patches of land,

I welcomed the idea

Of being swallowed up

in the blurred lines

of the horizon.