My Life of Emotional Treading

swimming alone,

head above the surface, carefree with just an occasional wake of a wave.   

swimming in tandem with My Love,

head in, but now - scanning, looking around for the next troubled wave.

swimming too deep,

almost lost - but somehow I’m keeping afloat.

I’m alive (or am I?) only because My Love is holding me. 

I am supported.

falling, falling, deep, deep

beyond all places one should go, the place your mother didn’t even warn you about.  

I have no choice. I was not given one. I am lost.

Even with My Love holding me, supporting me.  

We are both lost in the exact same, completely different place.

T i m e.

T i m e.

T i m e.

and so on…

swimming with my head submerged -

knowing other proverbial shoes will most certainly drop,

Trying to savor on eggshells, when I remember well.

once in awhile, diving deep - There, again,

spotting others lost, drowning in the deep darkness

and I’m grasping at them by their fingertips.

bringing them up to as far as they are willing and capable.

but - now I’ve been There, again,

semi-drowning with that overfamiliar anvil on my chest.

It’s that lost, deep darkness.

And now, again, fresh - raw - vulnerable.  

I cannot stay away. I want to disappear. Really I do - sometimes forever.

Yet, somehow I must choose this, as an unwilling participant -  

Or is it a willing one?

T i m e.

T i m e.

look! I see another lost one below. 

I feel my fiery anger swell at their proverbial shoe.

It’s not even mine - yet.

“I’ve already done this for us all!” I’m shrieking -  at noone - again.

reaching out,

I must.

I’m compelled unwillingly?

I’m in It, again - with them, raw, again.

but still I’m There - in my own lost, deep darkness.        

My life of emotional treading.

In loving memory on what would be your 15th birthday,

Madison Joan Friel

August 10, 2002 ~ August 26, 2002

Forever my daughter