In the shallows

"I'm fine," is the stock response. I start the answer too soon after the question has finished being asked to be convincing, but for most people it's enough that they have asked. Sometimes I waiver momentarily, wondering whether this person is the right one to trust to stop me from being lost inside myself if I allow us to look inside, but most of the time the air hangs thick with lost words never formed.

Silence is awkward and painful and we move on and I sigh my grief into the empty corners.

That suits me just fine. I'm fine, nothing more, nothing less. It's a balanced place to be, it allows me to survive, to function, to move swiftly through the times when people try to put the focus on me.

I keep to the shallows, I refuse to allow myself to be taken to the deep places where I cannot be sure of my footing, where I have to sink or swim.

I might just choose to sink.

For hope has once again been ripped out of me, another tiny life growing and then dying inside. I have been the suffocating guardian once again, unable to stop my precious child from being lost. Another part of me has been lost too and there are no words.

There are no words to express what it is to have gently held my withered dreams in my hand, disgusted but compelled. I cannot let myself feel because it will overwhelm me and those around me. I am holding back the flood, a destructive force which will crush us all. I am the only one who knows it, stares into it, feels it pushing to be set free.

I must stick to the shallows. I have to be fine. That is the only way.

.