surfacetodepths

[surfacetodepths]

Last night I dreamed about you. I saw you so clearly standing on the corner across the street from the dance school. Right where we used to see Boogie the dachshund. In my dream, we were in middle school again, compelting the last portion of our walk home before our paths diverged. I put down my lunch box to do our secret handshake that we spent so much time creating. I felt so happy to see you and to be with you again. But I couldn't remember how the handshake ended. I woke up crying because parts of you are fading from my memory. Even the bit of our handshake that came so easily in my dream vanished when I woke up. It hurts so much to not have you in my life. It hurts to not have closure. You could be out in the world doing amazing things or you could be struggling or you could be dead and I would never know. I have no way of reaching you, of finding you. So I'm left to worry and wonder. Did I push you away somehow? Did you hate me? Did I do something wrong? Did I miss how you were feeling? Could I have helped you? Are you ok? Are you alive? Did you ever graduate? What did you study? What are your dreams for the future? Why did you leave me? Do you miss me too? Do you even think about me?

I love you, old friend. And I hope we meet again someday

[surfacetodepths]

LETTERS TO AN OLD FRIEND - REISS WHITCLINE (via @poetmercy)

[surfacetodepths]

Lost Somewhere

It’s always so strange losing someone you didn’t know you could lose

We were talking and just stopped

They’re missing and despite how I try they cannot be found

Where did you go, my friend?

Did you finally run away like you always dreamed of doing?

Did you become a cryptid that little children whisper about?

Or are you gone

For good

Taken away too soon by your own mind

Never knowing a life away from fear and doubt

I miss you so much

Your smile and humor and charm and presence and

God

Gods

Whatever is out there ruling the universe, please I beg of you

Bring them back to me

My closest friend

Where have you gone?

What name have you taken now?

What name will they remember you by?

The name of a dead child, who withered in a church pew

The name of a lost punk who left too soon

A new name full of laughter and sunlight and love and joy

Where ever you are, my closest friend

I pray you find your way home

Even if home is no longer me.

Hannah, Max, Elliot, whatever you call yourself now

Please come back to me; I miss you so

Bee, Kat, Alex, others

Take care of them for me

Please keep them safe and away from the dangers and hurt which once plagued them

I miss you all so much

Be well, my dear lost friend

My dear lost someone

And, when you are ready, please come home.

[surfacetodepths]

Jordanna Kalman, from the series Invisible

her website

via here – thank you, vincekris and the censored gerifalte

[surfacetodepths]

i think one of the tragedies of losing a friendship and the reason why it hurts so much is you really feel how a part of you dies. like the little inside jokes, the way you communicate (sometimes not even verbally), all the stories you've shared and lived, all the things you know from that person. what they care about, the new song they have just discovered that they send you, the little calamities of the day to day life or simply how was their day. all of that just ceases to exist. vanishes. you will definitely meet other people and connect with other friends but not in the same way you used to do with that one you keep in deep in your heart and mind.

[surfacetodepths]

darker than erebus, L.L. || Danny Castillones Sillada, Those Sweet and Painful Memories || hozier || John Berger, Will it be a Likeness? from The Shape of a Pocket || Paolo Giordano, The Solitude of Prime Numbers || @adampvrrish || Sarah Kay and Philip Kaye || @apollomusing || @honeytuesday

[surfacetodepths]

Dear Emily,

I remembered an obituary, or maybe it was an image of a bench, that said “we were girls together” and I thought of you. We may not be friends now, but I’ll always remember your birthday is May 10th, the way you cheered at the end of the recess before math in 3rd grade, and how it felt to fall asleep watching Full House in your basement. We may not know each other anymore, but I will always be happy to see you, and I hope for nothing but good things for you. I will always love you because we were girls together.

[surfacetodepths]

Relearning

I saw my best friend for the first time in a while today and she was SO familiar but also SO different. I feel like I haven't changed at all but clearly time has changed both of us. We talked like no time has passed and ranted about ATLA and the fan fics we were reading but I felt tense the whole time like we were dancing around the fact that we've both grown up since we last saw each other. And on the walk home I had to ask her what her favorite color was. Because in middle school it was lime green (which, gross) and then in highschool it was closer to forest green, but I didn't know if that was still true. I felt like such a failure for having to ask my best friend her favorite color like I haven't known her for more than half my life. It turns out she still likes green, but a more subdued green, and she mostly wears burgundy or greyscale clothes. It's weird having to relearn someone that you've known your whole life. It made me feel guilty that I hadn't known about every change the minute it happened. And yet, even though we have to relearn parts of each other, she's still my best friend. I'm still the one who accidently revealed her crush to our middle school and she's still the one who *loudly* scolded me in public for humming here comes the sun. I'm still the one who sends her funny audio messages for her birthday and she's still the one who ordered a bagel for me nearly every day of highschool since I was too scared to do it myself. Our histories are so woven together I'm not sure who I'd be without her. I'm trying to think about this in a positive manner, as a way to meet my best friend again rather than feeling like I've lost her and fighting to bring back an older version of her that doesn't quite exist anymore. It lingers, like an echo, but there are new words being spoken now and I've got to stay present in order to hear them. Straining to hear the echo only muddies the message.

[surfacetodepths]

"Sometimes, I hope people can always say what they truly feel. And be genuine about it. No restrictions. No holding back. No keeping all the most important parts.

But then I remembered that I myself couldn't even do that. So why would I expect other people to be like that?

I realized that sometimes we have to choose what we only have to say from the words that we truly want to say. Every word doesn't have to be said out loud; rather, let our actions show what we truly mean. Because not everyone has the time to listen to what we're about to say, and that's totally okay. We human beings don't have all the time in the world to understand everything that's happening around us. We're all busy trying to save ourselves and live life the way we want to.

So it's fine if you can't compose yourself to say everything you want to. But remember that there are so many ways to reach those people who are important to you. And I hope you'll be surrounded by the right people who will lend an ear to hear the stories that you've been holding onto."

I wish I was braver // ma.c.a

[surfacetodepths]

Love Letter to a House

Dear House,

When I arrived on your doorstep, I was a caterpillar who had been told all their life that they were a misshapen worm.

Didn’t quite fit,

A bit strange,

Odd.

I found others like me, but we were seen as a group of odd worms, not a group of caterpillars.

We weren’t good at burrowing into the soil like others. We didn’t seem to have any talents at all. 

Then, I arrived here.

For the first time, I saw a world of caterpillars. Not only were they caterpillars, they were my same species!

My black, grey, white, and purple stripes were reflected back at me for the first time in my life.

I wasn’t alone anymore.

Sophomore year I investigated, searching for the perfect place to build my cocoon. I found it here, in this house that became my home

Junior year I started encasing myself. I was warm, cozy. Safe and loved. Home.

Senior year, my cocoon burst open. I emerged with wings still damp, unable to hold me up. By after soaking in the sun they were dry

And I took flight

[surfacetodepths]

Dad pt 2

Sorry if this is a little jumbled but I have a lot of emotions that I’m trying to deal with as I write it. I’m trying to write this all down because I know when I talk to you in person I tend to just get really angry really fast and I don’t articulate myself well. So this letter will probably be pretty long. 

Yes, it is because of you ‘pushing me’ that I have this internship. I’m not gonna deny that. I appreciate the time you put into finding places to stay and stuff. And I am happy to be doing this internship. However, my issue is that you have continually ignored both my behavioral and verbal signals. Not just with this internship, but all my life. You seem to think that the ends justify the means when it comes to me doing things. That just because I get the internship and have a great time there means all the anxiety and pressure you put on me in the process is ok. It is not. I get so incredibly stressed and anxious about internships because of the pressure I constantly feel from you. I push back because I am uncomfortable. I push back because I am not yet ready to take the steps that you want me to or that you think I should be ready to take. I verbally tell you I don’t want to do something, you force me to. I yell at you, you just yell back and punish me. I stop talking to you, you get annoyed. I try really hard to make it clear that I’m not ready to take certain steps and you seem incapable of accepting my boundaries. I feel like I am constantly shut down by you when my ideas or feelings don't align with yours. I feel like I am at the mercy of your explosive anger and that comes out as either me avoiding communicating with you, or being very aggressive from the start to try and force you to hear what I’m saying. That’s why I got so angry on the phone when talking about the Air BnB because I had just been on the website and I knew that the price changed for two guests and yet you didn’t seem to believe me. I often feel like you don’t believe / trust me even when I’m right. You like to bend the rules. I don’t. When you ask permission for something, especially something that is explicitly stated to be against the established norms, it makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I feel like when you succeed and permission is granted for something, you look negatively on me as though I was wrong because I didn’t ask the question. In my mind, I don’t need to ask the question because the rule is clearly stated. In my mind it is stupid to ask if the rules can be changed because you wouldn’t make a set of rules and then allow exceptions. These are just fundamental viewpoints that differ between us but I think they cause a lot of our conflicts. 

I know you think you’re helping, but the anxiety that your ‘help’ creates is overwhelming to me and it causes me to shut down completely. In the past when I’ve tried to explain this, you have immediately jumped to “Ok then I’ll stop supporting you and never help you again”. Which is NOT what I want either. I feel like you live in two extremes of either pushing me super hard or not helping at all. I just want you to accept where I am at this moment in time. I need you to understand that sometimes I just need time to process and do things on my own. Sometimes I just need to step back and take a break. I have limitations and I’m working on getting past them. Every time I say yes to speaking at an action or take responsibility for organizing something or even just writing and sending an email by myself, I am actively working to improve. It takes a lot of courage for me to do those things. Now I’m in therapy and I’m getting more help to improve myself there. But, I feel like you don’t see any of that work. I feel like you view me as some lazy, weakling who would never get anything done without you forcing me to do things. I know that’s not how you actually feel, but that’s how you make me feel. 

I often feel like you’re disappointed in me or like you think I’m a failure because I don’t work at the pace you want or I don’t do everything you think I should be doing. I feel like you think that if I don’t take every single opportunity that I’ll fall behind and ruin my life. The actions you take when I decide not to pursue an opportunity make me feel like you don’t trust me to live my own life. I feel like you doubt my abilities and that leads me to doubt myself. When you push me and I do get whatever it was, you feel successful but I am left feeling insecure and unconfident. It makes me doubt if I will ever be able to do things on my own and I am left still struggling to deal with all the anxiety that comes up in the process. Instead of stopping to process those feelings, it’s back to school or it’s time to find the next opportunity and go through the whole process all over again. 

I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I think a lot of the pressure you put on me comes from you projecting your own insecurities and regrets onto me. But I don’t need to take on every single opportunity in order to be successful. None of my friends (as far as I am aware) are doing internships this summer. They are either working (in areas that have nothing to do with their major or the job market), taking summer classes, or just hanging out. Last summer was one of the happiest summers I’ve had. I really enjoyed staying home and bonding with the neighbors. I don’t always need to be moving forward or doing things just to add to my resume. But, even though it was an incredibly positive experience for me, I felt like you were really unhappy with how I spent my summer. I felt like you viewed my pull away from our home zoo as a failure while I viewed it as a complete success because I got to do something I was really excited about. I wrote a letter to you about our home zoo (Dad pt 1) when I stopped speaking to you last summer but never sent it because it was a very angry letter. It says a lot of what I’m trying to articulate with this letter, but in a much more aggressive tone. 

I’m really not trying to say I don’t appreciate all the opportunities you’ve given me because I do. But, I also need to be my own person, find my own path, and get some self confidence so that I can do things on my own without it turning into a really negative screaming match between the two of us. I need time to reflect and to fail and succeed on my own. I need you to listen when I say I’m anxious. I need you to respect the boundaries that I currently have. If that means I miss an opportunity, oh well. If that means I fail, maybe I’ll learn something from it. If that means I do something that is meaningful and rewarding for myself even if you see no value in it, I will be really proud of myself. 

I know you have your own struggles and things that you are working on. I promise I do try to have empathy for you and see things from your perspective. I know that we are very similar to each other which is why it is so hard to have calm conversations. I hope you can understand that this letter isn’t meant to be an attack, it’s just honestly how I feel about the situation. Sorry if it’s hard to follow.

[surfacetodepths]

Visible/Invisible

Visible, seen, recognized

I don't often feel this way.

Achievements are overshadowed by others,

Hard work is not appreciated,

I don't need a grand gesture, just a thank you would be nice.

Those who are louder, who raise their hands higher

They are the ones who are picked.

Sometimes I like being invisible

Other times it is suffocating and frustrating.

Sometimes I like to disappear

Other times I want someone to search for me.

I have been recognized before;

Given awards for achievements that I don't remember,

Celebrated in front of the school in an assembly I so often put down

Because I wasn't the one getting an award.

And yet, still I feel unseen.

I am recognized but not remembered

It hurts to walk this line.

-------

Visible and Invisible at once

In the studio you want to be seen

But not stared at

I like to be middle of the road

Good enough to get a passing glance

Good enough to not get a correction

But bad enough that my teacher doesn't single me out

Visible means getting called out to try again alone

Visible means what I just did perfectly I will now fail at

Visible means crying in front of the class while pretending to laugh

Invisible means no one notices if I slip out the door

Invisible means both good and bad are missed

Invisible means I'm not good enough to waste time on

[surfacetodepths]

How Did I Get Here?

I don't know how I got here. I can't point to a single event and say "there, that's why I feel like this". My lack of a catalyst makes me believe my feelings are invalid. I know many small things can bubble over into a bigger issue, but my little issues seem so mundane it's hard to imagine the pain they could cause. 

Sometimes I think I feel the pain of others too deeply; I take on their issues as my own and I get too weighed down to stand. Other times I think I must be broken because I don't seem to have an emotional response to my friends when they suffer. I just stand there, confused and unhelpful, repeating "sorry" as though it might suddenly gain meaning if I just say it enough times. 

Mental health terms have been thrown around so much I no longer know if they are something that applies to me or if I'm just succumbing to the latest trend. TikTok algorithms attempt to diagnose me with autism, ADHD, and CPTSD based on the cleanliness of my room or the speed at which I talk. Am I a bad friend who doesn't feel empathy or am I dissociating from the moment to protect myself? Protect myself from what though? I haven't faced traumas or been bullied or even failed that often. My life has been mostly smooth sailing and yet here I am still. 

How did I get here? I feel like I'm playing Sims, watching other people around me catch on fire, watching myself catch on fire, and just laughing because it has no real impact on me. But it does. How did I get here? Who put up this barrier between me and reality? How do I get back? I cried yesterday. Today I have no tears, just an empty feeling. I can't be depressed and anxious too, I can't have ADHD too, I can't struggle too. I can't be like everyone else who is suffering the way that I am. No, something must be different because they have real problems, I'm just having a bad day. 

Why is everyone else allowed to suffer and get help except for me. Why do I simultaneously think that I'm the weakest, most useless person in the world but also the one least deserving of help? School, tests, friends, relationships, predators, complications, helping, hurting, mistakes mistakes fear fear fear fear. All so loud in my head. 

Flick it away. Make it stop. Make it quiet. Didn't work so hit harder. It will be quiet soon. If it's not, try again. Keep trying because I can't keep listening to it. Shush shush shush shush shush BRAIN BE QUIET. Brain is quiet but now my head hurts. Guess it was worth it for some peace. Now we wait while it bubbles and boils under the surface once more. 

I wanted to help. I wanted to help my friends. I thought I could be there for them. What do I say? Am I being helpful? Did I do it right? Heartbreaks hurt, so I'm told. I've never been taught how to heal a heart so I listen. Listening is harder than I thought. Sometimes I don't want to listen, sometimes I want to say "just shut up and leave". But who will be there if I am not? I can't step down from my position. My room is safe, my room is for crying people. I can't lock the doors now. My heart and mind have to be open and ready at all times. Soldiers on alert for anyone who needs me. But I'm missing signs and losing ground now because my brain is too full. There's no more room. You always ask "do you have the spoons for this?" I always say "yes, I always have spoons for you". I don't think I really understand spoons. I've given away all my spoons and now the drawer is empty but instead of saying "no, I don't have spoons right now, you'll have to wait till I go to the store" I say "well, I have forks, I can make do with those". How can I not have the time and brain space to comfort my friends? The idea is foreign to me. 

In truth, the feeling is quite familiar. I've felt this since I was a kid. You're sad? Too bad. Your friend over there is also sad so suck it up and go help them. You're feeling crummy? Too bad. Go comfort your dad and make him laugh so he doesn't yell so much during dinner. No one ever told me to do these things, I took them on myself. Which means I have no one to blame but myself. My issues are my own. If I caused them I should be able to undo them too. How did I get here? No boundaries anymore, always open to receiving for others. I take pride in this. I want to be a safe space for people. How can I maintain a safe space without some walls? 

Guilty. Should've helped her more. Why wasn't I at the house? I should've been there. I should've done something. My friend is suffering because of some drunk guy she thought was her friend. I'm her friend. Why didn't I do more. Why didn't I say more. What is there to say? I'm sorry that happened. I'm sorry so sorry sorry sorry so so so sorry. It does nothing. But she went to the library and did work. What are you doing? You didn't suffer. And yet here you are writing nonsensically about your feelings instead of writing your paper. You need an A in this class. It should be so easy to get an A in this class. But late late late again and again. No wonder the professor doesn't like you. No wonder she didn't check in after you missed two classes with no explanation and then didn't turn in your paper. You were wrong to think she cared. 

Well, guess that's karma. You didn't help your friends enough, you didn't feel enough. Now you're being left behind too. Clearly she doesn't have the spoons for you. It feels so hard to restart and try again. The brain fog sets in and nothing is clear. Tomorrow brings three classes then ace/aro then gamelan. I couldn't even go to my two classes that I had today and they were easy classes I enjoy. You're slipping again. Further and further behind. You can't withdraw this time, it doesn't get any easier. You're on level one - if you can't pass here you might as well just give up. 

Four days till I'm home but home isn't a break. Home is study study study study study. Home is playing catch up but never catching up. I should've called today. I knew this would happen that's why I called yesterday. You can't make appointments over the weekend you had to call today. I didn't call today. They called and emailed me saying when to call. They said it would take 2-3 weeks to get an appointment. My problems will be gone by then though, won't they? So I don't need to call. Just need to get through this rough patch. You'd look really stupid if you showed up at the appointment and everything was fine. You'll be wasting their time and other people have real issues. So just tough it out. After turkey and some dog snuggles everything will be fine again. No need to make a big deal out of nothing. 

This is nothing. You're nothing. I'm nothing. I don't wanna die or anything, don't worry about me. If you're not suicidal are you even depressed? Is it even an issue? I'm playing sad songs cause they have easier chords, don't worry about it. Did I even have to reassure them? Did they even notice? Would they even care? I tried to take a step forward, I called them. Called on the wrong day. Idiot. Ten steps back. This is why we don't call people. We just end up looking stupid and the problem doesn't get solved. Just tough it out just keep going. I'm sure it will go away soon. Who needs doctors? Everything gets better if you give it enough time. But you can't take a break during that time, you've gotta keep going. You slept all day but you're still tired? So lazy. So useless. You can't even finish a five page paper? Wow. 

How did I get here? How'd you even get into college? You were better at everything in high school. A better friend, a better student, a better dancer. Same mistakes made again and again. Stop telling people you used to bite no one gives a fuck and you just look weird. Why do you always make them think you're weird! Just quiet quiet quiet  shush shush shush I WISH MY BRAIN WOULD BE QUIET. 

[surfacetodepths]

Love yourself like I love you

Dear Friend,

I just got a Stitch Fix box today and I realized that my ‘style’ is basically just copying yours. As I thought more about it, it makes a lot of sense since I’ve spent most of my life trying to be you. My music taste is also pretty similar to yours and many of the songs I listen to I first heard in your car. 

For most of my life, I have compared myself to you. I have always viewed you as this unattainable, perfect version of what I could have or should have been. We both like animals and Avatar but you fit in. You never bit people or thought you were part dog. You had multiple friend groups. You had a seemingly perfect family with parents who I never saw yell at each other and siblings who all seemed to genuinely care for each other. You were always fashionable and pretty and knew how to do makeup.  You got good grades and understood math. You got things done and had connections while I stood in the corner too scared to speak. 

I wanted to be you so badly. 

Especially in middle school when we had our hate periods. I know at least for me, some of those hate periods were really caused because I was so jealous of you. You would go and hang out with the popular girls and I would feel abandoned and jealous. Jealous because you had other friends to hangout with, but all I had was you. I was too weird to be accepted by anyone else. I actually wrote a poem about this in French class one day - about how I constantly compare myself to you when I don’t need to. 

But I don’t mean to sound like I’m blaming you for my own insecurities or anything...It just made me so sad to hear you talk about how much you used to hate yourself the other day because in my eyes, you were always perfect. And so, subconsciously I guess I did try to be like you. I was drawn to the same things you liked and I’ve always wrestled with myself to try and seem more normal like you. And I’m not trying to put pressure on you to be perfect or anything, what I’m trying to say is that you were always perfect; back then and now. 

I really hope that you love yourself because I love you and so does the rest of our friend group and I’m sure countless others as well. I know I’m rambling a lot and not making much sense, but my message is this: please continue to love yourself and believe in yourself because you are perfect as you are. You don’t need to change yourself because you’re already smart and kind and beautiful. And you never bit people which is a major plus! 

[surfacetodepths]

Dad

So you don’t get your hopes up, there will be no apology from me in this letter. I’m only doing this ‘cause Mom said it might help you understand my feelings on the matter. And my feeling is that I do not need to apologize for what I said. I could apologize for the delivery of the words, but I am not apologizing for sticking up for myself. What you said to me the other day was hurtful and belittling. 

It made me feel as though I am a failure in your eyes and that I will never succeed in life. You told me that if I don’t do exactly what you think I should do, I am wrong and that it will somehow screw up the rest of my life. Do you understand how threatening that is? Especially for someone who already has anxiety about never measuring up and being a failure? Just because I don’t do things exactly as you want me to does not mean that I am wrong. It does not mean that I am a failure. It just means that I have another way of doing things. 

I’m not passing up an opportunity this summer, I’m giving myself a much needed break. I have taken advantage of so many opportunities in my life. I have traveled the world and had amazing experiences. I found --- all by myself, I worked and got the money for --- all by myself, and I flew there all by myself. So trust me, if there was something I thought I should really be doing this summer to ‘advance my career’ I am capable of doing it. And, in fact, I DID do it this summer. I got the Pittsburgh internship and I got money from the internship fund. Unfortunately it fell through, but I did get them and was prepared to do them. I don’t want to push myself into anything else this summer. I don’t know why it is so hard for you to accept that this summer I want a break! 

I want to stay home and hang out with my neighbors and work on dog training. I don’t need to be at the local zoo. I can do that any summer. No one is going to look at my resume in the future and not hire me because they see I didn't work at a zoo summer of 2020. They will know that a freaking pandemic took over the world and that will be that. For once, everyone is home and this, right here at home, is the opportunity I want to take advantage of this summer. I’ve bonded more with our neighbors this summer then I have in our entire time on the block.  

I feel like you’re projecting a lot of your own insecurities about wasting your life onto me and I really don’t need that. I have enough baggage of my own without having to carry yours. I wish you could just trust that I know what I’m doing; that maybe someone else has the good idea for once. You seem to only want to accept things if you’re the one who thinks of it and I’m really tired of it. One minute you’re the dad who wants me to skip school to go to comic con and the next you’re telling me I’m going to waste my whole life because I want to spend ONE SUMMER with my friends and neighbors. It’s not like I don’t have a job! I’ve made a ton of money from babysitting already and Mom and I are going to start camp soon. I’m learning a lot just from working with our foster dogs. I’m sure I could learn a ton at the zoo, but it’s not what I want to put my energy into this summer. 

There was a lot of anxiety surrounding the zoo after you and Mom tried to force me to go to the job fair thing. Maybe I would’ve overcome that anxiety and realized that I do want to go there this summer. But your constant berating and belittling attitude only turned me off from the idea even more. Sometimes I just need to come around to an idea on my own time. I get that you try to punch anxiety down in your head but that really doesn’t work for me. Everyone is different and that method only makes my anxiety worse. 

It’s really hurtful when you act like I’m not trying or I’m just wallowing in anxiety because I am making an effort, you just might not see it or realize it. I’ll say it again: just because I’m not doing something your way doesn’t mean that my way is wrong or that I am a failure because of it. I’ve been saying that to myself a lot lately because you really tore me down and made me feel awful the other day. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have yelled and cursed at you like I did, but it’s not really surprising that I act that way considering I learned my communication skills from you. So in case you didn’t get my message through the yelling & cursing, it was this: I don’t need your toxic energy in my life. I don’t need you projecting your fears and regrets onto me. If you are going to continue doing that, I will continue to not speak to you. 

You are my dad and I don’t want us to be like this for the rest of my life. But I also can’t have you confirming my worst fears that I’m worthless and I am throwing my life away when I talk to you. I tell myself that enough. I really don’t need my dad saying it too. I hope this gives you some perspective into what I’m feeling and why I haven’t been speaking to you.   

[surfacetodepths]

Waves

Sometimes the sea is quiet                                                                Other times it roars like thunder                                                    I am caught in the rip current                                                                      Pushed & pulled                                                                                        Drenched & drained                                                                                      I would swim to the surface...                                                                                If only I knew which way was up.

A moment’s rest                                                                                                      A gasp of air                                                                                                  Always accompanied by dread                                                                          For I know the peace will not last

The deeper I go the less I feel                                            The pain of being flung against the rocks dulls                                                  The noise of the rolling waves is suppressed                Sometimes I wonder if I should just stay there;            Let my last breath bubble out and pop in the foam

I know if I could just get my head about water,            If I could just stretch out my hand                                    Bells would be rung and I would hear shouts                “Man overboard” they would call as life buoys are thrown

But they don’t know I’ve fallen in                                      I’m too weak to raise a hand, too weak to shout                                           So I wait                                                                 I wait for someone to notice                                                  For someone to wonder                                                        For someone to worry                                                          For someone to care

I wait. And wait. And wait. 

As the waves drag me deeper

[surfacetodepths]

The Dove

Fallen feather, broken bird. White wings no longer shelter the world.