The Shipwreck

Where our feet converged and diverged
on lonely roads to freedom.
What we chose to believe or deny
intensely defined our mortal lives.
When we sunk our ships on monstrous rocks
just before reaching our havens.
We asked ourselves the question: why?
Near was our destiny, the answer to our deepest question.
Why are we here?
We screamed into the dense, slate clouds,
our voices like falling phantoms, laden with doubt.
Like an impenetrable fog on a highway before dawn,
What lay beyond was evasive, impervious to our cries.
We silenced ourselves and one by one
we sank into the depths, shrouded in loneliness,
carrion for the birds.

Upon our descent beneath the insolent waves,
some of us harrowed and heaved our bodies above the torrent.
We mustered every last ounce of strength to prevail the incarceration.
Others with cunning and wit swam beneath the terrible storm
to calmer waters where they could float to shore.
And the rest sank, succumbing to a watery death.
There were a few who waited for the hand that would save them.
They rested under the water, trusting that there was a savior in the midst of them.
Many survivors made it to shore.
Some by cunning, some by strength and some by a mysterious hand.
Bruised and damaged they would walk for the rest of life.

And our paths converged and diverged.
We met each other on broken highways.
Some of us stopped to fix our own wounds.
Others of us lashed out in pain and hurt those around us.
And a few of us stopped to bandage the others.
We are all the others, the some and the few.
We exist in love, selfishness and hate.
We choose to harm, to be selfish, to love.
We walk in belief, we walk in doubt.
Since the day of the shipwreck, we broke,
In a sea of disaster and hope.