Poem: Lifemates
#11 of 2021 Mental Health Crisis
I have a complex relationship with death...
Death and I are companions
rowing e're forward with sticks;
Death and I are companions
from the my smile to his shining white lips.
From my legs, chilled to bone,
soaked in cavernous lake,
to my arms that are weary and sore,
We row opposite ways
in a myriad of plays
and neither can reach the shore.
Now we circle around the tidal embrace,
the whirlpool with suction so real,
the break in the world,
the break I've become,
refuses to go and reseal.
For though I love death,
and I really do
I have not come this far
My goal within reach,
the edge of the Styx
and from here I ever go on.