The Rescued Sailor

The Rescued Sailor
by Jace Daniel (b. 1969)

Mornings are the worst. As the bare foot makes first contact with the
Cold, hard floor,
Furnace hours extinguished,
Nerves uncomfortably sober,
The short journey to the sock drawer a mine field of pain. So It goes with the Mind. Heart. Soul.
The first stinging moment of consciousness. Torture.
Eyes shut, yet seeing,
His Reality escaped from the night before. Reminding. It’s gone. Dead.
Did he kill It?
Did It kill him?
No difference. Like a death with no funeral,
Yet completely unlike.
For a wake is collective,
A loss shared. Not so in this darkness.
With It being too personal,
Too unique,
Too his.

The Hearts in his corner, bless Them,
Through no fault of Their own,
Cannot know what can’t be known.
Outside looking in.

As a shipwrecked sailor builds new Life on a desert isle,
And, through Fate,
Finds native Love,
Spends an eternity with It.

Timeless, yet inevitably finite,
Ending in loss.
A burial.
A wake for One.

Shortly thereafter,
Fate’s angels land. Unknowing.
Now rescued, he’s back to Life,
Yet forever isolated in Its wreckage.

He then opens his eyes
To face the Day that’s his
For the taking.