Under tow

All the things unsaid

All the reaching out that led nowhere

All the desire, all the confusion, all the pain

And the deep imprint of everything being swept away

Appears again unbidden in moments

Undertow

You seem to have evaporated

Only to return on lonely afternoons

Where echoes of old trauma pull on me

Unconsciously

I feel as though my insides are dissolving

And I fight to get free

At the same time as surrendering

It is all beyond words anyway

Why struggle to express it

Because in the midst of undertow

I feel so alone

Claimed by death

In tissue deep

Will this undertow ever end?

Despair encompasses me totally

In those dark hours

Though eventually I find my reprieve

As undertow disappears

As mysteriously as it arrived

And I find myself safe

Back on solid land

It is most probably illusion to hope

That undertow will not come again

Deep inside I feel I will never really know

The reason why

Undertow claims my soul

So when it comes

I must

For a time

Allow myself

To be swept away