You're Drowning

[Guest Elizabeth K]

Setting the stage, I want to say I rarely rhyme my prose - I just don't have the discipline - so I salute you who can.

This is written as I remember it - a work I imagined as I drove in the car this morning. My wife was looking at me before I left on my hour commute - announcing I had a problem. She then pronounced I was depressed. I explained I KNEW that. But she kept telling me over and over, "You are depressed."

...........................................................

Leaning over the rail, she saw me there

The water muddy and I couldn't see

It’s hard to swim when you have huge tears

It’s hard to swim when you have no legs

'You're drowning,' she cried, loudly, me to hear

It's hard to swim when you have to think

'You're drowning,' I heard, and might be true

It’s hard to swim, you stop, you sink

'You can help,' I cried, loudly, for her to hear

'I need someone in this time of pain'

'You can help me to the other side'

'You're drowning,' full cry she yelled again

I might, I thought, drown on this swim

I might not make the trip complete

But swim I must despite the risks

And be upon the other shore

'Where are your legs?' she yelled anew

Prosthesis legs of foreign steel

I'd left those 'legs' back there with her

Play-acting legs that were not real

I was born this way, what I truly am

I had to fit the standards true

So all the world said it cannot be!

Strap on these legs that are not you

'You're drowning,' like I knew it not

'Help me now', I tried to plea

'You're drowning, and it's all your fault'

‘You're drowning,' is all she said to me

'I was born this way,' I said once more

'The other shore is my grandest hope'

'To travel there is such a chore'

'No boat, no float, not even rope'

'Please help me,' I said through all the pain

'I need you now, more than ever 'fore'

'Please help me with that boat you have'

'Please help me to that other shore'

You're drowning,' was all she knew to say

Then turned and looked the other way

'I need this boat you understand, for myself'

'You are so selfish then, to swim away'

'If you drown, I'll be so hurt'

'The funeral cost... so very high'

'And my friends, I have to tell,

explaining how you tried to die'

'To swim across without your legs'

'Why could you not be like we said'

'Wear those legs of foreign steel'

'To look like we thought you should'

'You're drowning,' she said as she walked away

Her legs are real, she cannot see

How being something I could not be

False legs, I wore uncomfortably

'I will not drown,' I quietly swore

'I will swim to be upon that shore'

'Where those I know will be like me'

'Legs or not - I'll live... happily'

Apologies to those who are really without either one or both of their legs. I was trying to use the sense of wrongness the world projects on us whom are different. There was no intent to dramatize being physically challenged. Lord knows we are invisibly handicapped with gender dysphoria, and a prose poem like this is a sort of comparison to that.

Lizzy

[Flint]

Complex and good

[Guest Elizabeth K]

I'm gonna cheat and bring this forward.

Lizzy

[Sally]

Lizzy,

I understand both the metaphor and the pain

Looking for sunshine through all of that rain

Life can be such a struggle at best

Like some almost impossible test

But we have more strength than they know

We pass that test and still continue to grow

Stronger in spirit and will

The waters calm and still

When we finally reach that other shore

Life has love and meaning once more

Look to that far shore, Lizzy, I am launching the LP Rescue One Zodiak - You are not alone even in the middle of that river - you will never be alone again - none of us has to be.

I love you, remember that always,

Sally

[Guest Donna Jean]

OMG, Lizzy...

I'm so sorry...

I told you how I felt about this poem in a PM...

But, now, I need to say it now....

I understand.....

Totally what you're saying ...

I get it..

Love...

Donna Jean