by Michael Wilkinson
Restless creatures stalk their depths,
gnawing at our roots,
pursuing one another,
their presence mostly hidden
by sunlight reflecting off the surface.
Only the subtlest ripples hint
at dark things stirring below.
Side by side we sit,
dangling our feet over the edge,
angling for monsters in the abyss,
comparing notes on our catches,
classifying and tabulating phobias,
before releasing them back
into the darkness.
At last we resurface,
emerge blinking in the sunshine.
One long look into our eyes
shows they are still there,
the dwellers of the deep,
but we have taken their measure,
and made a taxonomy of our fears.
Our smiles break into grins,
maybe we have killed no kraken,
but an uneasy truce has been signed.
Goodbye for now, dear friend,
until we again need to negotiate
the deeper chasms of our being,
or simply share a drink on the surface.
“I go fishing for a thousand monsters in the depths of my own self”
Søren Kierkegaard
Michael Wilkinson is a professional computer scientist, amateur astronomer, writing poetry at night (at least the cloudy ones). Topics include mental health, friendship, loss, our place in the cosmos, dancing, and anything else that springs to mind. He is a member of Groningen Poetry Stanza in the North of the Netherlands, and has previously published in Acumen and The Writers’ Journal.
Emerge Literary Journal 