There’s a skylight right over my head
But the darkness pools, here in my bed
And I’m diving deep – searching for pearls
But I just keep on coming up empty.
I lay and wait for your key in the lock
For your ship to come into my dock
But the hours drift away and I’m down in the depths
Fruitlessly searching for pearls
Next I’m down on my knees
And I’m begging him, please!
Don’t go, just don’t sail away!
But my lifeline is cut, and I sink to the depths –
Chasing my scattering pearls…
Yet it should be him who is down on his knees
Thanking God for the moments with me
For a pearl diver comes only once in your life
So I turn and I swim for the light.
There are people who live
Up there in the light
But I’ve gradually lost my connections –
They stretched and they broke
As the pearl diver sank ever deeper.
Then he comes and the sunlight bursts inwards
And my world is complete for a while
And I thread one more pearl on my necklace
One more notch on the bedpost of life…
© Andrew Wilson, 2023
It’s Open Link night over at dVerse Poets Pub but as it is late here in England, I have dug out a previously unshown piece.
Written about a friend who was in an abusive relationship some years ago…
I hope this person was able to find the light and thrive in it. Darkness from abuse can linger and follow. Thanks for the drawing attention to this topic.
They did escape from that relationship, found their way home to family and is now found a happy place with a daughter…
This is heart-breaking and, having had a similar experience in the past, I empathise with your friend. The opening stanza is full of despair and I like the ship/docking/sailing extended metaphor in the following stanzas. The lines I find most poignant are:
‘…my lifeline is cut, and I sink to the depths –
Chasing my scattering pearls…’
and
‘…my world is complete for a while
And I thread one more pearl on my necklace
One more notch on the bedpost of life…’
My friend is a singer and I had hoped she might turn this into a song but in the event, she broke free and went back to family for a while before a new life complete with a daughter of her own.
Thanks for visiting!
Most of us have been there, sometime or another, chasing a dream in the name of wild heart. And end in the same despair. A great capture of the mood, its drowning detail.
Thank you and thanks for visiting…
Ommigosh… Such intense, powerful despair relayed in your words… Wow… Like a punch in the gut.
Much love,
David
It was a desperate time for her…
Thanks for looking in!
It’s so easy to get caught in that net, so hard to escape.
Indeed it is been there too…
Thanks for looking in and commenting!
This person is held in the grip of an illusion. Have experienced it and seen it in others too many times. I read in other comments that the person you based this on was able to buoy herself to the light. Beautiful and poignant poem.
When you saw me in A to Z before, what was your topic??
Thanks for your comments and for visiting. Looking back through my email alerts, I realise that I subscribed to your blog in 2020 which was my first A to Z and I wrote about the unfolding pandemic. Your alerts have continued to arrive in my “Social” account but as have so many other subscriptions that I became overwhelmed by the numbers and stopped looking there except occasionally…