A little void.

I’m afraid I don't have the right words anymore.

I feel it all so fully, so intensely, with every pore of myself. Every moment that passes me by, I reach out with stretched fingertip, aching to trace its veins, its rivers, its endless blue sky.

Oh, cruel irony, that forces me on. 
Oh, helplessness settled at the nape of my neck.

I want to have the right words. 
I want to hold on. I want to know I am living well.

I am afraid to know the truth. I am afraid to die. 

I am afraid to live.

I’m a little lost, and I've been here before, and I will be here again. I know it is alright, because I have been submerged before, and I have risen every time, hair thrown back with salty spray and dripping face panting at the sun. I manage to make myself proud, day after day, even when I think I will not be able to. The world makes me proud. The sky is a reason I have for going on. Red leaves on a winter afternoon. I live for little stories, round stones, dog-eared books and smiles. I search for beauty, and it sustains me.

I’m afraid of someday not swimming back up. I’m afraid of the quicksand at the bottom of the ocean, the helplessness that can escape from deep corners of myself to fill up the seas and skies, the space and the voids.