Physically I might've been there.
Loud bustling fun,
the eccentric energy flowing through the beats,
contrasted by the faint attempts by some
to hold common conversation.
I was there. I saw it all. I felt it all.

But I really was at the dock.
The quiet, cold, dreary one.
The one that reaches towards the middle
of a fog layered lake.
And I sat under the grey sky,
on the edge of the dock
dangling my feet just above the water,
letting the slight breeze
and air that carried the smell of fresh rain
flow through my veins.

I enjoyed being at the dock.
It was safe, calm.
And then I saw you.
It was like the wood I was sitting on
suddenly gave out, leaving me to sink
into the freezing, murky water
until eventually I hit the lake bed,
and was fully entrenched in reality.

I was being drowned in the sounds and senses.
Unable to swim back up
as the weight of the planks, no,
no. Memories. They kept me trapped underwater.
They were just a shaky foundation
that was bound to collapse under any pressure.
It's not you who did that.
It's not you whose keeping me here.

In fact what is keeping me contained?
Some old, aged planks, whose strength
while once mighty and known,
now only resembles a mere fraction
of their once soul binding grasp.
They don't have their power anymore.
They can't force me to drown.

And so I tear them to the side
leaving them lost to the sand.
I begin to swim to the surface,
emerging victorious as I break the water.
Looking around I saw that you were gone.
I had won.

© Robert Taylor