Inner flood

(With audio in the voice of the author)

(Activate if you wish to listen to this poem in the voice of its author)

From within comes

the riptide:

potent

purifying

unstoppable

paralyzing.

I have

no words

to arrest its progression...

It washes

over me

under me

about me

through me

as if I were

but a mere shadow

or the contemptible

pitiful residue

of a waningly

insignificant

mirage.

At the end

I am

but a lonely island

swimming ashore

countercurrent.

Yet

we are all

swimming

ashore

like lonely islands:

wind beating our faces

backs turned

to

the menacing horizon

hearts paddling

— countercurrent —

against the treacherous

riptides

of our own

internal oceans...