I'm not drowning

a poem about grief

Hello from mid-November 2024. The last time I felt this brand of hopeless, immersive grief was when my father died when I was 20. This is what this poem is about.


----Daddy---

the lake you loved was deep
its surface rippled by the wind
that summer before my junior year, the water dropped and dropped
and dropped
the sun bit the sky too hard 
and baked the beautiful pine trees into crispy side dishes
Your boat was stuck in that receding water, we had to hike out to it
deep in the muck
We laughed about it then
but someone had pulled the plug
We were starting to turn

That lake left us, Dad, it swam away every hot day,
and the hot nights too
Was it a 60 foot giant with a massive straw?
I thought I heard it at 4 in the morning
the terrible sucking sound of
goodbye lake

not so many years later
the moon shone on what was left of me
the layers of my being ripped away
by the terrible news of your terrible death
when the water rose inside of you
and drowned you in your own lungs

but 
I
was
stranded deep in the USA, one or the other of the Dakotas
2500 miles away
no one I loved nearby
a stranger in a strange land 
with terrible,
terrible news
and I was standing next to another lake
when the heavy payphone receiver told me you were gone

this new lake looked good, like Ophelia-good
Insisting I wear a fluffy white costume and walk and walk and walk right into it
A lake that was juicy, summer warm
Offering to envelop me and bring me to your arms
The daddy embrace of it
It’s all ok sweetheart
Cry hon, you’re ok
The daddy truth of it that you loved me anyway; even though I was kinda chunky
And not as smart as you might have wanted
The daddy way you carried me around on your shoulders celebrating me
And our same liquid aqua-colored eyes
Oh
This lake might have you in its depths
Oh
The moon seems to think so anyway
Oh
The moon reflected back to me with its shiny teeth
The mocking moon
The he’s gone moon

but daddy, you know what?
you left when I wasn’t a woman yet
still baby fat and baby emotions
your leaving made me so strong
I learned
I could handle the ripping, the searing,
and cooking under hot stars
through that terrible night
by the terrible lake
That pain could be negotiated with
Like the terrorist that it was
begging me to walk into its silky depths

I pointed back at it, screaming my scream of selfhood
the scream of I AM
And I might eventually be ok
not tonight
nothing could be worse
But I
knew
I could survive whatever life was gonna serve up
I could resist any lake that tried to drink me.