I hear it first; the ice's deafening crack.
So everyone runs to the lake shore, everyone runs back.

But I am in the middle, with no way out,
so I hold back a sob, completely empty of all doubt.

I know that I'll plunge, that I'll be pulled in,
and I'll drown like a fish with a broken fin.

So when it happens, I don't scream.
I just entertain a fantastic dream
that I'll live, that I'll be rescued- though I know it's too late.
Why? 'Cause I'm getting dragged down by my own skates.

The shock is painful- freezing- at first,
one-hundred (and one) degrees colder than the water for which we thirst.

With a temperature like a thousand needles, it breaks my shell,
and I fall deeper, deeper, and deeper into my icy well.

I hear yelling, muffled by my aqueous prison,
it's probably from the police, the fire department, and the ambulance, I envision.

As my feet touch the bottom, I finally start fighting,
and I start to see a beam of something, something as bright as lightning.

That's when I know I've lost it, that's when I start to yell and scream.
Although I know that they can't hear- I'm getting too close to the beam.

I shut my eyes tight; they burn from the cold.
Suddenly I remember something I was told.

Careful, they warned, today's hotter than the last,
skate close to the shore, they chided, skate fast.

Maybe, just maybe, I would have avoided this fate,
if I'd listened, thought, and hadn't gone for a skate.