Testo Nereus

From underwater the bubbles rise.
Each one a whisper of my muffled cries.
Gravity's chains break at these depths.
In the palm of the tide away I'm swept.
I don't fit the mold.
Instead the mold fits me.
Deforming to lie then exploit.
Its fingers drag, drowning aspirations. Using maturity to mask the void.
That spreads like oil, diluting, polluting.
In solitude I sink further from mortality.
Facing the deluge. Picked clean of identity.
Character dissolves just like the flesh.
Incessantly fading. I subsist like the rest.
Iridescent adolescence.
Now hopelessly stark.
A barnacle on a boulder.
For the tempest to lark.
Echoes remind me of who I'm meant to be.
Propelled. I deny the sacrificial reef