You suddenly appeared,

With a colorfully painted life buoy

When I was drowning,

In a cold, dark sea,

Tangled in the shards and splinters

Of my shattered ship.

You tossed it to me;

It was made from an old tire

And didn’t float well at all.

Laughing, you cut the line

And sailed off in search of another wreck.

I clung to it for a while

As it was the only brightness

In all that darkness.

Eventually I realized

That I needed to

Disengage from the sinking ship

And let loose the painted tire;

Because, after all

It was sink... or swim.