POETICALLY

It is not poetic to speak about the 

pressure on your diaphragm  

                 you suck a breath in 

                 through a straw and try to 

hold your head up, but you’re 

dunking your nose under the water 

                 counting each second you last 

                 bubbles begin to rise around your ears 

& your forehead becomes a stage 

for beads of sweat, they decorate you 

                 like pearls adorn the floor of an 

                 abundant dark sea, we swim through it 

but cannot see, we are lost 

trying to control the rhythm of your 

                 diaphragm, but you can’t. You’ll never be able to 

                 express this feeling poetically. 

Riya M. Cyriac is a 17-year-old writer based in Texas. Her work has appeared in Bitter Fruit Review, Ambient Height Anthology, and is slated to appear in the Lumiere Review's Advocacy issue and on the Poetics blog. She is also The Executive Director of The Young Writers Initiative. Social links: @riyamcyriac on everything, @rmcwrites on Instagram. Website: riyacyriac.com. Blog: riyamcyriac.home.blog