…in the dark depths of me

I no longer know who I am or who I used to be
for I have completely lost myself in the dark depths of me
I have drifted too far from the safety of the shore
and now, beyond the veils of silver-painted rain
the dreams of the past are rising again
not with the innocence they once held for me
but with a heaviness I cannot explain
they quietly burn in my soul and at the edge of dawn
I stand beside the water watching the dark satin surface
shifting beneath the faintest wind
my dreams slip through it like shadows seeking refuge
dark shapes descending into even deeper darkness
carrying the fragments of who I used to be
but the sea is not my grave, it is just a restless keeper
it lifts the past again and again
casting it onto the dripping rocks with a kind of tenderness
and there, they melt, old fears, dissolving into foam
old hopes, turning to ash, before the sun finds them
some drift back into the tide
some cling like whispers to the rough stones
some just slip quietly away into the crevices of memory
and I gather them to me, without meaning to
these fragments of then, still dripping with yesterday
still faintly glowing with the forgotten fire
the ashes of what I have lost and what still lingers
my longing carries them, light as falling embers
back to the deep hollows in the depths of my soul
and now I understand that the past burns
not to destroy, but to illuminate, revealing in its brief flare
the shape of the person I have been trying to become all along
© Ann Bagnall