If I had a boat

Luring these murky waters still seem to be: endlessly patient, shorelessly unpredictable. One thing is for certain, these waters can hold, even hide every secret. They have and hold, they demand to possess all sacred, shameful or valiant traces of acts done to one another. Your shaky wooden boat rocks on the back of this merciful giant. Leaks appear, yet you stay calm. Drifting. No panicked haste trying to find dry land. You are drifting. In this blissful state, the state of helplessness there is only one way to survive: let go of everything connecting you to life. Forget that which once was important. Give in to the gentle rocking of the waves under your boat. This little wooden instrument, the sole keeper of your life, now in full control. You are fearless yet condemned, unsure of your soul’s power to steer you in the direction desired.

The journey is far from calm or easy. The encounters are rapidly over, yet leave rippling currents that shake this unstable wooden object. You navigate without a compass or a map. This is the way I shall travel, you say. This will be the way I learn my way around these stars, these planets. I will use the dimming lights of the crescent moon to guide me further. I will seek dry land only as a last resort. I will hunt the fish of the deep seas and carry ornaments, valuable spices to trade with bushmen of far away islands. My boat will be named sancta regina, queen amongst ships of grandeur. But you are still drifting. Your soul is hurting, your heart is heavy. You have been rejected, cast out from amongst those you thought cared. You are unsure what will happen, telling the future is harder in foggy circumstances. No need to rise yet, the winds are favourable now, you should be on the right path for a few more days. Say, does it get lonely out there? No, you reply. It is lonely only in company. This, this is redemption.

As for me, I am trying to find a little bit of rope. I might pull you out or pull myself in to join you. I have never felt this free, lifted off the ground. The pain leaves drops of blood on your shiny spirit, leaves holes in mine. Closer, pedalling closer, faster, further away from all binding, clearly misleading, rotting human emotion that aims to kill off the other. I want no part in this, would rather join you in your sinking wooden boat. My raft is made of paper, rapidly disappearing. I go down with grace and honour. There is nothing familiar here, only the aches that sent me rummaging for a boat made of paper, air, dust, sand, clouds. Oh but this is a magnificent sight. A decisive and definite moment that can hold all the empty, fill the voids with meaning and clarity. I can barely see but I will wait.

Now it is silent, clearly still. The winds howl no more, the sails are gone. We are lying still, each in their own boat. The skies are mercilessly apparent, sharply outlining the exact location of each star. They burn. We move further but only with a fraction of a knot. Nothing to see behind us, too dark to see in front. I am humming a tune, maybe one you have made for me. You are repeating words I have given to you, long ago. Like this, to the silent rhythm of drums sounding from shores which have been long gone, we lie motionless, free in spirit. We wait for the next wave to come and grasp our frail boats, toss us to the bellows of the hungry sea. But in these boats we are finally, finally free.