Five Years

Five years Slipping under Falling deeper So deep I couldn’t see the surface So deep I didn’t realize I was sinking It’s comfortable down there Peaceful, if you could call it that Nothing to feel Nothing to live for or dream about Simple existence in the ever-growing abyss Just go to sleep Wake up Keep to yourself Don’t bother them Stay hidden They can’t hurt you if you’re hidden But it’s hard to hide forever; They’ll come looking for you Can they see me all the way down here? I can’t see them I don’t want to see them It was them who pushed me in the first place Peaceful Maybe at first But peace is a fleeting thing I was numb, empty, dead inside For five years Emotion is easy to take for granted But then again, it’s hard to miss when you can’t feel anything The thing about sinking is that your rate accelerates with time So maybe at first you only slipped a foot or two a month But by the end you are slipping miles deeper between breaths Not able to tell this blackness from the blackness that was present before it Comfort slips away after some time in the abyss Deadness is peppered with fits of rage Fits of sorrow And occasionally a glimmer of joy A flash of a memory of the surface Where the sun shines and the wind moves the trees A spark above Is it really there? Is it my imagination? Is it just my mind turning all this black into something else? It’s just a trick. And for a while, that’s what you believe But how long can one trick of the mind last? At first, the spark will only appear once But then again And soon months between sparks turn into weeks Weeks to days Grab for the spark It must be real now And after five years I pulled myself to the surface Reaching for the spark To grab, and put it back where it belongs To put it back inside my chest But the spark is still above me And now I just need a ladder