December 7, 2021

a passing resemblance to water

Look in any direction and the urge to surrender beckons with sticky caramel fingers. 
“I can’t take it anymore,” we say, almost casually now, folding into the couch cushions,
our palms pressed to foreheads fevered by the relentless flares of alarm, 
but 99.999 percent of the time we do. We take it and we take it still. The well, however 
empty it had seemed, turns out to carry the dregs of something with enough of a passing 
resemblance to water that we drink, dragging our chins along the bottom if we have to. 
Whatever it was we imagined might have tipped the scales could not outweigh this thirst,
though we have nearly fainted from it, each time wondering if we would wake up.
We did. We woke up and still we are awake, tightroping on some thin cable of hope
that bears almost any weight we dare to give it.