Riptide

The words are there on the tip of my tongue,

They hang there without sound, without voice,

They hang there without form or shape or structure,

But no sound, nothing but an empty void and my eyes burn,

They burn into the back of my head with intensity,

A white light, a dark light, a light of flowing water

Made of sapphires with diamond foam choking me,

And I struggle up to see the stars, I struggle up

But never reach the surface, dragged down again and again

And I fight with all my heart, I fight without end,

For there is no end, no time to breathe for but a moment,

None, just me in the water of sapphires and diamonds,

And everyone expects something of me, they expect me

To fly free and clamber to some rock and survive,

But I don’t want to, I can’t, I just want to let go…

Let go and sink away into the darkness and not fight it,

Because there’s something down there somewhere,

Some magical thing I’ve always sought but the descent

Is long and perhaps I’ll never make it,

Perhaps I’ll drown before I ever reach it

Or I’ll lose my way and end up forever trapped in limbo,

But I have to let go and lose if that is the way it goes,

Because I can’t win in anything else, win now or never,

Lose my soul completely or win your heart forever.