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Escaping captivity

 


I am swimming across a vast, threatening channel.  
The water is cold and dark.  
The current moves me more than I manage to move across it.  
I see lights at the far shore, appearing just when I need to see them the most.  
I swim, and swim, and swim, until I just need to rest.  
I just need to close my eyes against the tide, and the force that pulls at me.  
And then I wake and I fight to keep swimming, 
because that is all that I can do to stay afloat.  
I cannot go under.  
I allow myself to dream of the shore and that safety.  
I was there, once.  
I left the shore, and the warmth of safety on my own accord.  
And, now, having become immersed in the dark channel between that time
 —the shore; warmth; life; people—
and another life, I know that to keep swimming is the only way.  
The closer I feel I may be getting to the safety of the shore, 
the more deeply I feel the deep 
reaching to pull me under 
and to rally it’s monsters to converge at my back 
and devour me wholly.  
I am lost at sea.  
I am missing in place.  
I am racing to freedom from my captor.




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