Decompression Sickness

Nitrogen dissolves inside the blood at pressure in the deep,
and if you rise too fast the bubbles wake from their deep sleep,
and form inside the tissues and the joints and in the brain,
and what they call the bends will turn ascent into a pain.

The lesson of the bends is not to surface in a rush.
The lesson of the bends is that the ascent needs the hush
of careful staging, pausing at the decompression stop,
before you let the pressure differential drop.

I surfaced from a season once without the staging stops,
went from full depth to daylight skipping all the drops,
and felt the nitrogen of all I had suppressed at depth
bloom into the tissue and compress my every breath.

Decompression sickness, coming up too fast.
Decompression sickness, nothing built to last.
Decompression sickness, every nitrogen bubble blooms.
Decompression sickness in the joints and in the rooms.