SWIMMING

 SWIMMING

Pulling teeth for that obligatory "thank you,"
the one our mamas drilled into our bones—
manners etched like moral code,
expected, automatic, rarely real. Society, that thankless beast,
snarls through every exchange,
cold and cutting in the now. Some souls never skip a beat
to "correct" your grammar's slip,
tense twisted, theories nitpicked raw,
cursor blinking like a judgmental eye
on line breaks, spacing, every flaw—
as if their feedback's gold, not playground spite,
a child's game dressed in grown-up guise. Confused, I wonder why my thoughts
hold any less weight than the next breath's,
or more—why the scale tips so wild.
Sometimes it feels they'd gleefully
hold my head beneath the waves,
watch the bubbles rise and fade.