"weeping under water..."

"“the strange sensation
of weeping under water... "
- R. A. Dickey

i let my arms and
legs go slack
as I struggle against the current,
an undertow pulling
me further and further from
shore...

I am tired
and cannot fight the
inevitable

I will not reach my destination,
I will not win this
battle with
the past to
drag me backwards...

I feel myself sinking
like lead
and for the first time I do
not think I can do it...

I can't win,
I cannot overcome what
grips the
sodden graveclothes of my mistakes,
the choices
I have made, the
injuries
of another's
touch upon my soul...

I have nothing left
but this last breath drawn
and it escapes me
like the sad, soft mewing of
a starving child
belly inflated with the
emptiness of
hope,
the hunger for
salvation

and then I feel them...

hot tears

they are so different from the cold,
damp, angry
fingers of the undertow...

they are warm and
stay close to my face
they are not quick to melt into the
brackish darkness that
reaches for more
of my heart

they are mine,

and because
they are mine and mine alone...
I know that I have lived
I know that I have felt
I know that I have loved...

and want to love again..

and in that moment,
the heaviness of my leaden limbs
turns to gold...

and instead of sinking,
I reach deeper for the
bedrock of my being
my right to love...

my right to
try...

again.

weeping under water
hot tears
coax my heart to push off
from the black
shale, and
sharp granite,
to reach for air and
seek the light

and
as I burst through the
surface of
my wetted sepulchre
I see my life
before
me warmed by an inner
something,
a presence
deeper than the
cold tunnel vision of
my
empty
past...

it is the swelling
song of compassion
the rich heartbeat of a living
love....

it is the deep drawn
breath of one who knows
that the past can no longer
drown her in
despair,

and with
that new breath,
I rise
from the darkness
lifted by the
buoying waters of
a billion tears...

“the dark domain of
pain and sin,
surrenders,
love doth enter in...”
― M. B. Eddy