Kamden Hilliard

Swimming Lessons

I sat with you in the library
doing my geometry homework
pretending the table was a bed
and I was discovering the arc of your breasts.

I said, “Sorrow can swim.”
You laughed.
So did I.

That was the first lie I told you.
Not the swimming, but the laughter.

The laughter didn’t say,
“Drinking won’t make things better.”
—which it should have

It said, “You wear hangovers
like a rite of passage.”

It should have said,
“I can smell the whiskey backlash of your exhale;
it’s 8 AM,
Madison,
what are you doing?”

Maybe it should’ve whispered,
“You are what poems are made of,
these feelings.”

At least, “Sorrow can swim.
So, drowning it in shots won’t work either.”

It should have said, “I am sorry for what I know will happen to you.
I am sorry because I won’t do anything about it.
Not a damn thing.”

You laughed again, like an aftershock.
I tried to glue your fault lines back together and stop the destruction.
Prevent your California nose dive into the sapphire pacific.
But I can’t help, if you won’t help.