The Black

rain. so cold. like small whips at my face swung by a man in a yellow coat too old and dirty to show sunlight anymore. waves attack the boat like a pack of wolves, darting, biting, gnawing, retreating, repeating. in the waves i see my reflection, a ghost, already drowned in that big blue  leviathan. my body just floating in its depths, floating free and unchained. liberated from the deck beneath my feet, the comforting terrain of the beast we sail through these uncaring waters, the only thing to keep us from the depths below. the depths so deep no sunlight would go. depths so dark. so dark. 

there are mountains down there, mountains and monsters and little rocks with little fish to call them homes. big rocks with big fish to call them little rocks. bigger  fish to call the smaller big fish food, and monsters to call it all a playground, a training ground for the endless struggle of land and sea. the monsters will battle and kill and win and live to fight and kill to die and these wars between the krakens, the serpents, the behemoths and titans of the sea. they clash with such bloodlust and splendor that the blows carry to the surface and release tidal forces unseen. 

diving. deeper and deeper, blue, purple, midnight black. soul crushing void surrounding, so open, so empty, so oppressing, so tight. i am flying, i see stars, i am a satellite through this expanse, my radar picks up nothing. blip. something. something close. blip blip. things. close things.  curled in a ball i am an asteroid, hurling through this darkness, i want to escape. every direction is darker, there is no north, there is no up. there is no trail of soggy bread crumbs. there is no expanse. there is a chasm, the walls are close and cold. they cannot be seen, they cannot be felt. they just are. the longer i look out into that black the closer they get, and the smaller i make myself the smaller i must stay. if i stretch out a finger, an arm, a toe, i will collide with something, or something will collide with me. i will be sent off course, careening into the walls of this underwater canyon, forever bouncing from sharp stone to sharp stone, ever falling downwards. or upwards? there is no bottom. i do not know which way bottom is, there is no top. there is nowhere that i came from, there is nowhere that i go. i am just hurling through black, and the black is crushing.