Week 2 - Luzon - Keel-Hauling

This is my entry for LJ Idol - Survivor, with the topic "Keel-hauling."

Keel-Hauling

Tethered by my umbilical
I scrambled topside,
mouth opening to suck in
amniotic deluge, viscid
meconium, as forceps
pulled my bulbous head.
I burst to the surface,
too weak to cry. A bulb syringe
drained my brackish lungs,
and I gasped, mewling
for comfort. Was lifted into the arms

of an incubator, white noise
suffocating sound. An ocean
away, my mother grieved
the normalcy they said I'd never
see. My future
stifled by my striving for sun,
my early days plunged
into uncertainty. Every crawl
forward, word uttered, step
taken, my mother celebrated
her miraculous daughter, reborn from salt.