The Hole

Somehow, I got lost, fell into a hole,

A trap,

A vortex,

A deep well of cold tears.

Once I was there, in the hole, I thought that was life,

Darkness,

Cold dripping walls,

Sobs,

Tears,

Despair.

He couldn’t understand, he didn’t see the hole.

He wouldn’t look  at something so black,

So bleak,

So fetid,

So abstract,

So real.

He thought it was me, reflecting on him,

Cold,

Soggy,

Lifeless,

Dripping with salt tears,

A mouldering dishcloth.

I needed him to reach down, throw me a rope,

A lifeline,

A thread,

A torch,

A box of matches,

Some chink of light.

He turned his gaze away to another who wasn’t in a hole.

Who hadn’t accidentally fallen,

Who was young,

And fresh,

Who could smile.

Not saturated with tears.

Eventually I saw where I was;

The hole, 

The trap,

The vortex ,

The deep murky well.

You know the phrase to pull yourself up by your bootstraps?

It’s not easy to hold your own weight against gravity,

In a vortex.

I pulled because I knew my life depended on it,

My sanity,

My loved ones,

My love,

Everything,

All.

I clawed my way out muscles aching with the effort,

Fingers bleeding,

Gripping the slippery edges.

Sometimes loosing hold, always trying not to look down,

Into the abyss

Now I am out my greatest fear is not death;

It’s the hole.

The trap,

The vortex,

The rank well of  deep despair.

Some days I can see holes all around me,

Waiting to trap me,

To pull down  into the darkness,

Like infinitely deep black craters in the landscape.

Every morning I wake and struggle,

To be whole,

Not 

In 

The 

Hole.