Surge

You awake in the fog of after
which obscures all that was before.
It’s palpable, like sheets

binding you to a nightmare.

You are flung into a stifling, scratchy
grey, suffocating from a lack

of space, an abrupt knowledge

of finite.  It is too much.  You form the words 
but they emerge like sounds on a slow

reel, heavy bubbles popping

under their own mass.  Disoriented, tossed
about, you are throttled again

again again toward fear’s maw

from each crest and trough.  You flail,
turning, driven below and forced

to the surface where you gasp.

But then you hear other words, another
voice that is within but isn’t either.

You cannot float if you are struggling.

And so you release, you give
yourself up, not down, and you let yourself
be carried.  It is then that you begin

to focus, to see the hint of light that
did not yet exist in that moment before night
ends and something else begins.

You watch, in awe, as dawn streaks

the sky with color, a steady warp from east to west
and you realize you are no longer adrift

or alone, but buoyed by a love that

surges like a wave, carrying you back to shore, no
longer ensnared.  Your feet touch

soft sand, terra firma, and you step

forward to greet the day with the quiet
hope that only dawn can bring.