Above the Anchor

I’ve been told that love is the strongest force in the universe, but I know it to be no more reliable than a house made of glass.

It’s like this: love is an anchor. When attached, you are on the lakeshore, blissfully content that the chain will do nothing other than provide connection, while the person you are sharing that love with is sitting at the bottom of the deep in a glass house, anchor in hand.

As you fall into love - deepening that connection - the person at the bottom of the lake begins to pull.

Slow at first for some - a gentle de-escalation down into the blue where your partner awaits you with their doors wide open.

For me, however, it was a sudden, violent wrenching that pulled my feet out from under me. I was dragged kicking and screaming into the waves, leaving behind deep gouges on the lakeshore from my attempts to hang on to dry land.

My blood and chipped fingernails rose to the surface like bubbles escaping my lungs. It was here where I realized that there was no point in fighting. I willed my arms to fold around myself like a life-vest as I rode the currents, hoping that the chain between us was strong enough to wear against this violent descent, that the anchor waiting at the bottom was worth the fall.

But no one warns you about the after, about what happens when the glass house shatters, and the anchor is still there, tethering you to the lakebed.

I’ll tell you once I can breathe again.

_____ . . . _____

Author's Note:

This was a flash fiction piece I wrote for a flash fiction course online. It was inspired by a dream I once had of walking along a lakeshore, combined with personal trauma and my fear of drowning.

Funny how random things can come together so well! :P

P.S. Thank you for all the love on my poem 'Don't Touch Me'! I never feel like I can say it enough. (: