The sea of yesterdays.

A poem to unravel with.

I stepped out of the sea of yesterdays, drenched in nostalgia.

In times of confusion, I had kept returning to these waters seeking certainty.

Again and again, I would submerge my body looking for answers,

desperate for ease,

heartsore for clarity.

And while I held the hand of hindsight, it made a fool of me.

Because the answers are never back there in what once was.

Though draped in control and obvious lessons I understand only now,

time does not work backwards

and it is intrinsically connected to the experience in exact moments.

I squeezed the memories from my hair as the waters droplets of certainty release

and a chill set in as the wind of the present sang against my skin.

No towel or blanket, I walk naked in the present moment.

How vulnerable here in my own awareness

that again and again, I can choose to stay or go.

I keep walking, taking a hand of uncertainty in my left

and releasing the tight grip I held of hindsight from my right.

Uncertainty pulls me in and wraps her arms around me and asks,

‘why are you so afraid?’

I feel the saltwater at the edges of my eyelashes and I heave a sigh,

‘what if I fail, again?’, blubbers out of my mouth.

She lays her head atop my head and I feel her jaw unlock to speak,

‘love yourself anyway’.

I feel myself reaching for hindsight again to see where I have done this before,

to see if I can actually even do that. For proof.

She takes my hand with a gentle strength and places it along her back, she then asks,

‘What if you stopped waiting to love yourself once you learn the lesson?’

I look up from her embrace with wide eyes and she laughs a motherly laugh,

and then she is gone and I am holding the wind.

___