Death of a Nihilist [poetry]

25. buoyed beyond the dark snags

some kid drowned himself in the pool

and everybody laughed

as the poor motherfucker sunk to the bottom,

screaming in bubbles.

we watched his clothes billowed

forming a cloud around his frame.

toasted to the muffled kicks

under the glittering teal top.

cheered while hysterical limbs scrabbling

against whirling warm water.

the chlorine burned our eyes, our throats,

the same way it rushed down

the kid's windpipe.

flooded his lungs,

razed his alveoli,

filled his gut.

the pool water refracted, inside out,

pulling him down, down

to the crowded deep-end

in another blithe june

where the sun but a hollow,

hallowed white dot

caressing the top of our heads,

and the languid seconds stretching

past the fading ribbons of exhales

was counted by half-drank

beer bottles sweating by the poolsides,

slicked with cold sweat

and blurry fingerprints.

we didn't realize the kid was dead

until the afternoon heat broke.

buried underneath colourful buoys and floats,

his bloated body was held suspended,

striped by wavering ethereal light reflection

and painted blue from the golden sunshine,

his final breaths bubbled to the surfaces

like clusters of frogs' eggs

we oft' found

bobbling to the pool idle waves every summer.

⸻

prompt: bright places