The Marsh Holds

I first believed that my feet had simply sunk. That the ground, spongy, treacherous, had given way all at once beneath the moist weight of my slow walk, as if the floor itself, tired of carrying me, decided to become muddy, to offer my steps a soft bed, permissive, almost affectionate, to swallow me gently. But it was not a fall. It was not a collapse. There was no brutal slide, no tipping. It was slower. More intimate. A sinking. Progressive. Patient. A long, almost tender gesture from something lurking just beneath the surface, which did not wait for me to fall, but to yield — and which, without violence, without sound, without biting or strangling, had closed its invisible lips around my ankles, not to punish me, but simply… to hold me.

As if my feet were the only things still confident enough to believe they were outside of me, and the world, tired of waiting for me fully, had decided to start with them.