Water, 2008

The sky is black this night.
Hands held out before me,
Misted in pearlescent tones.
The darkness mirrors all that I cannot know,
nor see.
Such a desperation for answers leaves only a heady frustration at their lack.
I haven't the faith of other people.
Answers are merely enigmas.
To believe only in myself is hopeless.
Some strange inexplicable need for warmth has me lain in the bath for hours,
Ever running water when it becomes tepid
And I feel the chill,
I watch its ripples, they escape to my skin.
The tips of my fingers.
It's taking me over.
I manage a twitch of a smile at a memory,
"you'll shrivel, and shrink and disappear down the plug hole"
My mother's words, but the true warmth at their recall does not last.
I am a seamless imperfection
One flowing into the next, there is fault
Upon fault that I can find.
I imagine this water a mirror, I have no actual reflection
Only a series of over-lapping shadows.
What if there is nothing more. If this is it.
What a joke it would be.
I sit as the water drains, colder and colder
And colder I become.
I shiver but do not move.
I watch the last trickle as it curls and disappears, leaving me behind.
I wish I was water.
Water needs no answers.