marooned

do not underestimate the riptides of grief, they said
i heard it the first few times
but the warning has lost all meaning

and now i am suddenly washed ashore
alone in a way i could not have thought possible

marooned by the inner workings of my own body
i heave and sweat and jerk with spasms of fear
mounted higher than any god could reach

i have come to worship a vision,
an undertaking of yet another labor with death
(a feeble, transparent attempt to prepare for tragedy
when no such preparations exist)

i look out across the sea
to the faraway land of the living
and i wonder if i will ever rejoin them

because for tonight
in this lonely hour clutching my belly
December seems like eternities and eternities away