CAUGHT IN THE RIPTIDE
A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPLORATION OF "THE BLACK MOOD"
DESPICABLE ME
I am terrified of the hole.
To fall in and get lost once again.
I know this place.
I know this place like prints on my fingers.
This crevasse in plain sight.
No light enters here.
It is an in Encyclopaedia of darkness.
I am terrified of the hole.
I am terrified of what I am.
What I am capable of.
BREATHING IN THE
WHITE WASH
I awoke to a landless sea.
Silent.
Devoid of purpose and time.
Almost
almost,
almost as lonely as me.
The suns rays had finished me off,
for no reason,
but spite.
My skin scorched deeply,
I began to open up like the seams of a book and with haste, salt buried itself into my wounds.
Gently at first
and then
unbearably.
Here I was,
only days,
hours,
no, moments alone,
spiralling out of control.
I called out for help,
a plea for recognition.
A necessary voice.
But I was robbed instantly of all sound.
Absorbed by the deep swirling blue below.
What greed,
what selfish desire,
to deprive one of all thought
and then speech.
A storm of anger was brewing within me
Caught.
Tied up.
I waited.
It was vast
And endless.
And then,
not before the rise nor after the fall, I found a solitude.
Only for a second.
Because lest I forget that I was still sailing on a bed of perpetual motion.
My ego abandoned, I focused my remaining energy on escape.
The waters now calm, a clear navigable horizon.
I paddled with direction and eager arms
but instead of making ground I found myself being sucked back.
I turned around and saw an enormous wave
building,
building,
building,
It was reaching up to the sky.
Surpassing clouds, it blocked out the sun.
In an instance I realised its magnitude.
The height became appalling
and yet I was still
rising,
rising,
rising,
And then as quickly as it started,
I was
falling,
falling,
falling.
Sucked under,
pulled from my misery
into another.
A Place where time stretched and compressed.
Beaten and battered I gasped as I emerge, amidst the white wash.
The water receded, and a soft sand laced my fingers.
Knelt close to the ground, bowed and bent like an old willow tree,
I exhaled.
Spat out by the ocean and hung to dry,
I witnessed the world with a new appreciative eye.
JONAH AND THE WHALE
Do you see me,
way down here in the swell?
Surely you must.
Screaming and waving
"Here, a soul worth saving!"
Do you see me,
way down paddling against the swell?
Fragile and floating.
These waves absorbing and thieving
"I'm lost but no longer grieving!"
You can't see me,
down here in the gills of the swell.
I've embraced your ebb and felt your flow
and with your high comes your low.
An earthly need,
like the blood that we bleed.
Our insignificance so tremendous.
I will continue adrift
and not panic when the currents change and begin to shift.
WHAT COMES
WITH THE WAVE
Perhaps I’m not like you at all.
Yes, most definitely not like you.
Definitely afraid of you.
I’m not here for beauty.
Nor for rules.
Just to be.
Not to get caught in a tiresome wind.
Not to dance like a kite but to fly away.
The waves crash.
The moment breathes.
The sun gazes.
Governed by her own accord, her rays here for no one.
To emulate her is to be free.
Fly me to the moon.
Let me live uncritised.
Do not label me.
I am energy running wild.
Running dark.
Running blood.
Running gold.
Running thin.
Running plentiful.
Running real.
Running in circles.
Not for no one.
But life itself.
DO NOT GO GENTLE
INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Her eyes focused on the white frothing water that lapped briskly up to her feet.
Rhythmically.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
She had faded, once again, in to the seams of time, where she neither thought of the past nor the future.
Just inhaled, then exhaled.
As her neck folded up and her eyes traced the waves back, she noted how they began to melt away into the dusk lit sky.
Beyond, small blinking lights called out.
A message from afar.
Beacons bobbing just close enough to see but too far away to reach.
A spec on the horizon.
She had been still for what seemed like an age and for the first time her mind briefly began to wander.
"Surely by now, everything else has come to pass?"
And yet the boats that had come to rest for the night indicated a life beyond her land.
Soon, 100 years would have weaved its way into her fabric being and she would no longer be standing upright.
She too would merely be a speck on the water's surface.
Even without her watchful eye,
boats would continue to sail,
the tides would continue to change
and the moon would continue to rule the dark.
Something stirred within the fragile lady.
Suddenly, overwhelmed by the riptide of emotion she had long endured, an exciting fear took a hold.
Darkness was rolling in, pushing at her back.
With a decisive new step, she focused on where she was heading next.
Then plunged face first into the water, swallowed by the night and sea.