We Cannot Surrender Her
Try as I might, she will not go.
She sends me on to test the water
but remains on the shore.
Ankle deep and then no more.
Fingers trailing and then no more.
Having once found a false bottom,
she trusts no foothold.
The falling is the thing, I tell her,
yet she holds back from the fall.
Let me always be the one going down, I tell her.
I will always be the one bringing you up, she answers.
This is the role we alternate being the stand-in for.
What I want she keeps me from.
What she fears I pull her toward.
Relax, I tell her,
but she fears what relaxation brings.
She cannot surrender herself.
I cannot be content until she does.
Twin sisters, we rail against each other, then hold hands.
Comforting. This is enough, she tells me.
Nothing is ever enough, I tell her.
This poem, written in yesterday’s session, loosely meets the prompt. It is about going places––that part of one’s self that wants to let go and that part that fears risk and needs to maintain safe control.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
Yes, indeed. You reminded me of everything I need to do because procrastination isn’t going to get it done.
You are right on my personal mark this morning.Today. I have to figure out how I’m going to deal with the stuff I’ve been putting off. The long plane trip to Arizona. A 60 mile trek to see a doctor. What AM I doing about my teeth? How will we manage a new hearing aid for Garry? It doesn’t sound like so much, but it’s all the stubborn stuff that I cannot coach into an amenable direction. So I say “tomorrow, I’ll deal with it tomorrow,” but I’ve run out of tomorrows. Today is tomorrow.
I KNOW I’m not in control of life. When things go my way, I am grateful, but under no illusion that I did it. Good planning — and a lot of luck combined, maybe. Control these days equals doing everything to make things happen the way I need them to happen … then hoping like Hell that it really works out that way.
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A good one –
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This explains a lot to me about Baby Boomers. I’m married to one, so thanks.
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Your comment is very interesting to me, since I had a line defining this woman as a baby boomer which I took out because it seemed too “explanatory.” You are very perceptive to have seen the poem as describing a person of that generation!!!
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Lordy, Judy! I felt like you were in my head! That’s an amazing interpretation of that prompt.
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Thanks, Calen..That’s the biggest pleasure, having you identify with what I write!
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Every writer’s greatest compliment… I’m sure you hear that a lot.
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Wow, somehow I missed this one? Wow, I like it!
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Now I have to read it, too, Relax, as I can’t remember what it is about.
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I love when that happens!
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Ah yes. My alter-ego poem. Sometimes I read something I’ve written in the past and think, “Oh yes, I feel that way, too.: Then I realize of course I do because I wrote it!
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ROFL! I hear that!
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