I saw it in your eyes
A hollow emptiness that had no path to your soul
An emptiness deeper than the abysmal depths of the ocean
floor
Still, you pretended to be my captain secretly hoping you
would find the open door before I realized such thing did not exist.
Desperately wanting it to work, for what I’ll never know.
It was all a lie in the end
It was all a lie in the beginning.
You are a coward and nothing more
I believed everything you said
An image of hope appeared and I was excited
Excited for a new beginning, excited that you wanted me by
your side
But it had all been a lie
You left and then you returned
The person I knew never returned though
You came back to me so eager to leave again
All of a sudden your heart no longer had feeling, when did
you know?
One day we sailed on perfect water
The very next moment our ship crashed.
Actually, the captain abandoned the ship and it crashed into
the rocky shore
I sank, you swam.
I gasped for air while the freezing cold water engulfed my body,
paralyzing me
My lungs no longer worked
My arms and lips turned blue
My heart was frozen and stiff and sat in the pit of my
stomach
I watched you float away on your life boat, the one that
seats only one
You never even looked back
What remained was my soul
Somehow it escaped the cold, but it watched me still
Watching me flounder, watching water fill my lungs, choking
and suffocating.
My soul escaped, bruised but mostly unharmed.
I felt your desperation, is that how you felt?
Wanting so badly for things to end, for the pain to leave my
body
Drowning was better
For two whole days, I mourned the loss of my body but not my
soul.
My body lay there lifeless in front of my eyes.
I had two choices
Resign or revive.
I thought maybe you didn’t mean it
I thought maybe you let fear grab the helm
I thought you were strong enough to regain control
Fear becomes obsolete and my soul, which for a moment was
charred and sullen, suddenly begins to bloom
I run to the hills, green with life, and I don’t stop
Higher and taller than I have ever been before
The climbing seems easy now
At the top I see my soul, beautiful and glowing like a new
ship making its debut amidst the vast ocean blue and sparkling in the sunlight
It is like a picture, so perfect, so young
The most beautiful ship I have ever sailed, and I’m sailing
alone
But I am not alone the entire time
I stop along the way inviting people to sail with me
And as the strength of my ship parts the water seamlessly
and with flawless effort, I remind myself that the fear of losing control of
the helm is far more eviscerating than the fearless chance that I may crash
into the rocks again.
by Torrey McKnight
