Swamp

You’ve been weeping into the dirt so long

You’ve made yourself a swamp to sink in.

Couldn’t be helped.

Your business now, though,

Is not to sink.

I know how heavy it is.

It’s a vacuum pulling your insides out of you,

Hauling you back down like a greedy hand

Every time you try to rise.

You can’t see this but

It’s up over your shoulders now

And mounding on top of your back.

You can’t see the sun shining above you either,

With your face wet and buried and the muck in your eyes,

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

The sun is going to harden that mud into bricks

And it’s just going to get heavier, beloved.

So I need you to try to get up now.

We don’t say this to each other often –

We should, maybe, all the time –

But I’m only one step ahead of you.

I’m not singing from some oasis

Not some rosy country road

Not a warm fire and a cat on a winter evening

Or the arms of a love free of questions.

I’m covered in mud.

But I’m breathing.

You don’t think you can tighten your neck

To pull your face up out of that mess --

Can you turn it, though?

Turn it just a little to one side

So a bit of air can get to you.

Maybe it’ll smell like honeysuckle.

Maybe you can blink the crust off your eyelashes

And see a little light.

If that’s all you can do,

Well, just sit with that for a minute.

You’re a little freer than you were,

A little more you.

Every time you decide,

You’re reclaiming something,

I promise you that.

So turn your head, just a little bit.

Decide to.

And then decide again.

And we’ll see what happens then,

After a while.