As the tears steam down my face & my heart sits heavy in my chest an ocean forms around me. My heart anchoring me to the sea floor. My soul swells with all of the guilt, disappointment, heart ache, pain and longing I’ve acquired through this experience we call life. I feel like a tiny damaged boat in this open angry sea. In solitude I find myself riding the massive waves, each wave ready to tear the vessel apart or send me hurtling overboard lost forever. Knuckles white from hanging on to the worn wooden sides, no ores now as all guidance and steering fell overboard a long while ago. I prick myself on a splinter but hold on even tighter embracing the pain, it means I’m still here.

The inertia making me feel ill now I just close my eyes and feel the ache, hoping that my tears will wash some of this feeling away and sail me to a new tomorrow. I feel I can barely speak. Unable to adequately explain myself to anyone to help this ease, I am the unknown, I am alone even when amongst the masses. I give in & give over to the feeling & ask for forgiveness for all the wrong turns and self loathing that I’ve saturated myself in. My intentions have always been pure but the water is muddied now from the abuse, the embarrassment, the secrecy and the longing for love that never came. I would have done anything just to have a sniff of that, but in doing so I buried myself deeper into the lonely abyss. Was I even worthy anymore, I knew I had been, but with each passing year it seemed less and less likely. Peeling back the layers of confidence to be left feeling raw, vulnerable & totally alone.

Maybe it’s my breathing that sends the boat affray, I slow my breath for a moment and go within. In and ouuuut, slowly the peaks and falls smooth and I almost wish I could stop breathing altogether to allow for complete stillness. But life and pain, love and hatred, it’s all that makes our world turn. There is never one without the other, as the absence of one makes them both obsolete. The rise and fall of our breath just as the thump thrump in our chest. It all has a two and fro that creates life itself. Pressure and release. The emptiness and the overflow. The space and the form. We must learn to love where we are, as there can always be the influx after the outflow. We will not always be empty, nor always full.

But maybe just maybe if we believe in each other we can help each other climb out of the dark and balance these tides to still waters. My breath in helping your breath out.