Salt And Ink

And Die

"Calm down", you say,

"This is a phase that will pass,"

"And the glorious Sun shall shine through the desolate clouds at last"-

To you then I say,

Have you ever felt

Like a lone, wandering ship

Surrounded by a blanket thicker

Than any blanket you can imagine,

A blanket of fog,

A blanket of panic,

Of loneliness, fatigue and desperation?

And as the skies donne their veil of darkness,

And the pointed prow dips into the gushing current,

She hopelessly gropes for direction.

Raises her sombre mast,

And squints into the distance

Searching for the faintest trace of a lighthouse-

A torch that will show her the way-

And save her from this gory, gushing gale

But to no avail.

The storm is at its best.

Its strongest, its horridest, its fiercest.

It shows not the slightest hint of mercy.

And the wicked waves wash the wood

Clean of all beauty and color

And from the wood that made a mighty ship

Reduce it

To just wood.

Woeful wood.

Worthless wood.

Wood that could've belonged to a ship

Once upon a time

But now, it resembles a soggy, wet piece of paper

Wet not so much with the sea,

As with the mourning tears of the mighty trawler.

And as the lashing, rolling waves envelope the ship

In a suffocating closet of doom,

She raises her mast in one final moment of glory,

One trembling, quivering second of righteous pride,

Before falling into a swoon.

The waves bar any return to the surface --

The only way is down,

Down into the depths of destiny,

Down into the vicious claws

Of the one inevitable demon in all our lives.

And she downs, she drowns,

The massive fishing trawler

Now nothing more

Than a pitiful ruin.

Dragged to the bottom of the sea,

Its wretched remains craving for mercy.

She had been so proud of herself,

Thought she had it all,

The waves who'd once seemed her friends,

Were the ones that made her fall.

Never had she imagined,

The calamity life would bring-

And now that she's at the threshold of death,

She tells me this one thing-

When life sets out its snarling fangs,

You, my friend, don't stand a chance.

Your heart gets turned upside down,

You lose all faith and hope,

You cannot fight the enemy's might,

And you certainly can't elope.

Friends are but gales of wind,

You might make them your home,

Yet when the claws of tragedy strike,

You realise- you're all alone.

Never make them your breath and soul,

Or you will regret as I,

And buried in the depths of your own wet woes;

Lose all control,

And Die.