Swimming Pools.

What swimming can mean.

I love the feeling of water on my skin

It reinvigorates me

I love to swim

I love the feeling of tranquility

It soothes me

Brings me back to reality

But what I love most is being under it

And its peaceful silence

My mind at ease...with all of it

Of the hurt I feel

Of the joys I feel

Of the constant flowing thoughts of:

I feel, I feel, I feel!

Being under water helps me heal

And when I re-emerge from the depths

Of the sea, or merely a swimming pool

I am relieved

--

I've always loved swimming as a kid. When you think about it, we have a pretty interesting relationship with water. It's how we, obviously, cleanse ourselves, in both a literal and therapeutic way (at least for me). I've been doing some cold showers recently and it really makes an impact. I only do it for about 30-45 seconds but you get a pretty amazing jolt of energy from it.

I wrote this poem because I've been spending a lot of time outside. It's been brutally hot out and I'm fortunate enough to have a pool to use to stay cool. I have always been conscious of this, but I never really wrote it out, or thought of it in this way...but when I'm under water everything's completely silent. The sound of the lawn being mowed at my neighbor's, dogs barking, the birds chirping, whatever it may be, it's gone. And there's something pretty amazing about it. I realized I was also pretty silent in my mind.

So, I wanted to write something that embodied that feeling. It's funny, I've been researching different poetry prompts and there's so many things you can write about. I tend to focus on, for lack of a better word, "deeper" themes, but really, those same concepts can be applied to basic things, like swimming.

-JTC