An Hour's Time

Decide. 

Delay the desire for deliverance?

Or surrender?

There is no inbetween. 

Will there be foolish false victory as you release only to find there is no air to be found?

As nature pours a pitcher into your lungs, at what moment will it become peaceful?

Presence. Inhale air. 

I am not there. 

I am here.

So cunning to place me on the brink of death underwater when I am on land.

Why?  A question you cannot answer.

Such sabotage. And to what end?

You are a marvelous and hurtful animal. 

They will put me on trial for witchcraft if they hear me

Yelling into the emptiness; 

Yelling at you.

Voice echoing off leather and glass to only myself,

They will burn me at the stake with secret guilt

because they too yell into the emptiness.

Echos cease. 

Illusions fade. 

Now I can feel the rushing current under me.

Now I can grasp at swirling highways of power never to be held.

Now I can see the gorge walls that I have missed in this place normally carpeted in fear.

Now I can submerge in the other dimension with no desire for oxygen.

Only after these moments may you join me, my animal. 

Let the rain cascade over our shared vessel.

Watch the river defy gravity as it is plucked upwards by fingers.

Venture out from the cover of the bridge and into the storm. 

This is for us. 

This is what we came here for. 

And although the clash of the closing lightning quakes our being, 

We take comfort in each other’s arms and stay in the storm. 

In an hour's time, our love story will fade.

I will fall just like the ornaments of dangling raindrops on the hemlock

Into the river below,

And wonder again at what moment will it become peaceful?