The Mariana Trench Isn’t Dark Enough,


& I’m growing older               growing older
           dissociative &               holding onto memories of sleeping in an ocean
swelling with the bias            of a mind no longer,
            pried open by              earthquakes, tidal waves, the gorges left in the floor by
every rift in a mind &            synapses that erode what’s left
           of rock & sand              & sediment crushing itself
into solidity & a mind            underwater
            is nothing but              deprived of oxygen, an aggregation of
memories & foulness,            bad matter & every breath I take
             I swallow salt              water that fills my lungs,
cutting air from rifts              scoring flesh, rock & I’m growing older
            growing older              with the dissent of the tides
with every blue moon            pulling water from shoreline,
             eroding away              sand, every cracked shell
that carves away into             the ocean floor as I’m
             growing older             & I’m growing older.

 
 

Audrey Lee is nineteen years old. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and attends Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She is the winner of the 2016 DeSales University Poetry Contest and her writing has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and Columbia College of Chicago. She has attended the University of Virginia Young Writers Workshop, Ithaca College Writers Institute, and University of Iowa Young Writers Studio. Her work has been featured in or is forthcoming from Rookie Magazine, Teen Vogue, Half Mystic Journal, Apiary Magazine, Aerie International, and The Ellis Review. Find her at audreymorganlee.weebly.com.