The anchor stays in place

In this big blue expanse of life.

Autopilot: on.

The captain rests in her ship,

Not afraid

Not anticipating things to come.

A black storm is coming

The hints are tangible in the air

But the captain stays anchored

To the anchored ship of hers.

The waves toss and turn

The boat rocks hard against them,

But the captain, oblivious, stays anchored,

Anchored to that anchored ship of hers.

Suddenly

The waves gives the ship a mighty shove,

And the anchor loosens and shoots up to the surface

The surface of the now foamy gray expanse of life.

The captain falls out of rest

Her eyes like saucers

Suddenly afraid

Suddenly unsure of what lays ahead in her once unchanging journey.

Autopilot: status pending.

Rain, rain she cannot feel

It falls.

Blinded, she struggles with the wheel,

But her nerves fumble.

She feels black, spidery letters of her past crawl up her skin.

A snowy drift of toxins,

These words finally hit home.

Vision strains to pick out vague shapes in the fog,

And she slips down against the slippery deck.

Bruised.

Battered.

Unprepared and naïve.

In this now choppy charcoal expanse of life.

But no, she gets back up.

Autopilot: Off

A hunger only satiated by self-approval,

A need to survive.

The ship creaks,

With the occasional cacophony of the anchor brushing up against the rocks on the seafloor.

A soundtrack for the captain on her unpredictable journey.

The dusty mike, crackling with a lack of use, is removed from the board,

And turned on.

The captain’s voice rings out in jumpy radio waves,

And bounces back.

She waits,

Anticipating.

Desperate.

A sound comes from the left,

“We are here.

We’ve been here all along.

Can’t you see us? You don’t need to stay there alone.

Travel with us.

We won’t leave you unanchored,

In this volatile and reflective expanse of life.”

The captain brushes a hand across her sore eyes,

And her arms no longer crawl.

Her head feels clear,

And the rain has stopped falling.

The voices of her fellow captains,

Coming from the tinny well of the radio,

wash over her,

And the ship finally docks in the harbor of a land,

A land she did not think she ever needed to go to, until now.

Now,

The anchor is irreparable, but makes its presence known once in a while,

The captain journeys with her radio on constantly,

No longer alone,

No longer unaware of the ever-changing tides

In this iridescent, sporadic expanse of life.