The Divine Anchor

Is it my body or mind that leans frequently towards the abyss?

Who made the choice to be this way: to fear the scorching flames of living so much, that the void grows in appeal?

More galling still: why does my heart vacillate on this?

When I am replete with despair, filled like a voluptuous indigo cushion, my vision is cut short. I cannot see past it.

I am offended the next day when, after some sleep, I can recall the experience, but can’t so much as dip a toe in the deathly waters.

I would wonder “What is the purpose?”, but I have already wasted fruitless years on this, and something more interesting has appeared.

They are bright. In so many meanings of the word. They are small and fragile but also expansive and unflinching and adventurous. At least at times.

Their love for me is perfect. Unconditional. It is humbling. By accident I am a giant in their world and I am so so terrified of letting them down.

By their grace I now know the great depths of pain that anyone who cares for children must feel when harm comes to them. I crumble inside when I hear of pain inflicted upon these jewel beings.

So now I am trapped. A better author than me described it as a building undergoing a great conflagration. So horrible that to throw yourself from the structure, regardless of altitude, was preferable to staying in its infernal halls.

I can’t jump. The divine anchor holds me in place. Worse still than suffering life, would be knowing that I had hurt this child. That I had devastated them utterly.

Whether or not there is heaven or hell, for any last moments of being, the thought of their torment would bring me eons of my own.

I am forever saved from sinking, held irrevocably to life by my love for them. For their happiness.

The essence of my being burns, melts, and heals, over and over again. The anchor is immutable. It is a joy to love you, to be loved, to know you.

And like a star that illuminates, I fear that you have shown me that I can hope, that devilish emotion, for a time when the fires are extinguished.