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.