"Where It Is Safe"

Raging white waters

A solid flush

Spilling and rushing down the line

A river of memories

Shadowed and brushed

Racing and raging in my mind

And one night I ventured

To the side of its bank

Thought I’d dip in just one toe

To revisit what’s been suppressed

For all that sank

So deep, stored deep down below

On the bottom of these raging white waters

Lie a valley of memories and dreams

And up they would come and surely I’d panic

Pushing down, holding down

Too many lived nightmares it seems

And one night I grew tired

Weary and not afar

From venturing into these raging white waters

Where surely your ghost and my demons are

Until I heard a call of my name

Within the trees that lay behind

Don’t peer into water, the opaque and raged kind

For you will rediscover a history of betrayal and shame

And snap, I pulled back

Almost sucked in by the currents

And on safe dry land where there’d be no such occurrence

Safe I will stay from these raging white waters

And in it you will lie for all time

I will never revisit your memory, my demons

For this dry land is a safehaven of mine

-SQ 2011