Life falls all around me
Like water
Like sand
When digging a hole 
at the beach 
you can never dig 
the hole you want
the sand slips 
through the spaces 
between your fingers
and sifts off the walls 
you wanted to be so stable

Life drowns me
Like water
Waves towering over us
we can slip beneath them
until we're too far out
to escape them
i can breathe
until there's nothing left
to hold on to 

only screams of little girls
thundering claps of breaking waves
whisper of the wind of riptide
she can be saved
what happens next time 
next time when i can't 
save myself
what would be left

In the darkiness
Life startles me
When the ocean sleeps
the waves are flat
from the shore
the sea is glass
a single sheet of glass
I cannot break
and continues on forever

Falling around me
Drowning me
Startling me 
Complicating me
Enlarging me
Deforming me
Enslaving me
Regarding me
    away from me
        on other shores
            forever. 

April 20, 1997
Sarah Rose House