Plunge

The water tenses up my muscles,
my teeth are sent chattering.
Struggling,
flailing,
failing.
I try to keep a float.
The current is raging, it pulls me under.
Too long I have been caught in this spin cycle.
I break the surface.
Water cuts into my throught and fills my lungs.
Now I'm choking, and the water is stinging my eyes.
Cold has made my body numb, feeling has become a thing of the past.
A hand pushes me under and holds me there,
presses me against the murky muddy bottom,
waiting for me to relent, until the time for a normal person
to drown laspes.
It retreat.

I wash up on shore downriver.
My breath returns, and along with it, my strength.
Mobile I become, traveling away from the sandy banks and torrenting currents.
It will take more than that to get rid of me.