surface (it's been a while)

i miss scuba diving.
i miss upside-down earth.
i miss being on the other side of the looking glass.

i miss decompression, hovering those fifteen feet
below the surface of the ocean and waiting
for the nitrogen to leave my skin.

…i wake up from dreams these days
like someone coming up too fast.
my head goes through something
like the bends.
reality boils underneath my skin
like bubbles of nitrogren.

i have to take those fifteen minutes each morning,
lying quietly underneath the sheets,

becoming accustomed once again
to brain and flesh and heartbeat,

convincing myself, this is better
than life underwater.

I breath the air from ground to ceiling in a deep, deep sigh,
and lie there for a good fifteen minutes.

just decompressing.