Drowning in You
You came back like a storm
not announced
just pressure rising in the air
the kind my body feel before it breaks.
~
I thought I had learned how to leave you
I did leave you
young and shaking
mistaking survival for wisdom.
~
Now every thought carries your weight.
You move through my mind like water
finding cracks I did not know were still open
settling behind my eyes
sliding into my sleep
filling the spaces I once kept sealed.
~
We speak and something ancient answers.
It is not polite.
It does not ask permission.
It is heat burning my skin
recognition without reason
a pull so familiar it feels earned.
~
I drown quietly.
In the way your name lands heavy in my mouth.
In the way memory turns physical.
In the way restraint feels like I am holding my breath
for too long
for no good reason.
~
I know the danger.
I know the history.
But knowing has never stopped a current.
~
You are everywhere now.
In my pauses.
In the sudden ache low in my body.
In the way my thoughts keep slipping
back to you
as if this is where they were always meant to end.
~
And I am no longer sure
if I am sinking
or finally allowing myself
to go under.
The poem feels like someone being pulled back into a connection they thought they had finally outgrown, and the way it’s written makes that pull feel almost physical. The storm at the beginning captures how this person returns without warning, stirring up pressure the speaker recognises instantly the kind that comes before something breaks. There’s something very human in admitting they once left “young and shaking,” confusing survival with wisdom, as if age hasn’t made the heart any less vulnerable.
The water imagery gives the poem its emotional weight. Thoughts seep into old cracks, memories settle behind the eyes, desire moves like a tide that ignores every boundary the speaker tried to build. It feels like the past didn’t stay behind at all it just waited for the right moment to flood back in. The idea of something “ancient” answering when they speak captures that sense of a connection that bypasses logic and goes straight to the body.
The quiet drowning is what lingers: not dramatic, but happening in small, intimate ways a name, a memory, a breath held too long. The speaker knows the danger, knows the history, but also knows that knowledge has never stopped a current. By the end, the question of sinking or finally letting go feels painfully honest, like someone admitting they’re not sure whether this is destruction or surrender or if it might be both at once.
I wanted to write a comment on this, but I can't.
It's beautiful in its recognition of obsession, even when we don't know what it is; and someone having worked their way so deeply into us as to become a ghost within our machine.