I have always thought drowning
\na more fitting death than being burnt alive.
\nThough I hope to be cremated,
\nmy ears don\u2019t wish to bear witness to my personal demise.
\nI can imagine the way the flame
\nlicks my fingers, the sheer beauty of it
\nwould amaze me. If only my nerves were burnt
\naway first. If only my vocal cords were shredded
\nby the smoke already. If only my eyes
\nweren\u2019t tearing up.
\nHow the earth shakes with every footstep I take,
\nbut once I am submerged in water
\nit all goes away. Fades into another shade of blue.
\nWater is more forgiving, its weight
\ngives space for the whole wide world
\nto pass through with a mere ripple.
\nThis bodice of water uncontained,
\nforever floating in the abyss. The air we breathe
\nis part hydrogen, and our water bodies attract
\neach other\u2019s poles of magnetic particles.
\nI can imagine it would hurt. I tried it
\na few times, holding my breath
\nuntil my lungs would explode.
\nTried imagining if it would be the same as breathing
\nin outer space, expansion of the lung
\nending in rupture and asphyxiation.
\nA once fervent and angry ocean
\nbreathing out, its waves slow down,
\nand another person,
\njust gone.
\nMaybe it\u2019ll end like all things,
\nashes returning to ashes,
\nwater returning to calm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have always thought drowning a more fitting death than being burnt alive. Though I hope to be cremated, my ears don\u2019t wish to bear witness to my personal demise. I can imagine the way the flame licks my fingers, the sheer beauty of it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2465,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[5246,2420,2430],"class_list":["post-116259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","tag-2022hour10","tag-hour10","tag-hourten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2465"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116276,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116259\/revisions\/116276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}