I'm going down for the third time:
My situation is markedly hopeless.
The immense vortex in my soul
Matches incrementally to the riptide
That is drowning my body.

It's hard to continue swimming
With a body that is entirely vertical.
There is no surface beneath my feet
Which are endlessly searching for
Some kind of steady purchase
Underneath the shifting waves.

I can't call for help, or rescue;
Everything above me is obscure. . . .
The landscape is fading away,
As my lungs are deprived of air.
Water is the only thing I can breathe,
Because my eyes are all that
are visible
Above the murky surface.

I wonder, as I'm going down,
'Do the dead dream in silence?
And does anyone in the graveyard
hear them moan?
Will I realize the difference
When I'm dead and gone
And will I even care?'

As I sink further downward,
Everything becomes dark
& dismal . . .
Then a blinding white light appears,
And the vast darkness is no more.

Do I want to taste life again,
Bathe in its surreal beauty,
Walk among the stars in the galaxy,
And begin everything anew,
Like tomorrow never happened
before?

Only if I get to walk in
totally different shoes,
And take the path through
an unknown forest
That I was unfairly denied
previously
On my nocturnal sojourn.

I want to stroll on a sunny beach
Hand-in-hand with my boyfriend,
Without a shirt on in broad
daylight,
Without any darkness to speak of.

I want people to see me and him
& fantasize
What it would be like to chance it all,
To never look back in abject fear
Of all that we are & all that we hope
to be.
I want to be free to become . . .
the real me!









© Kris Bailey
11-13-20