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 