Drowning:

I am drowning in my life,

no longer treading water,

lost in oceans of strife.

Pain from the past cuts like a knife.

The present gives no quarter.

Looking to the future, uncertainty is rife.

Living in a persistent state of trife,

Crumbling like ancient mortar

Existence standing over me, shife.

Sensing the dull edge of the knife,

like a lamb to the slaughter.

Head bent low, awaiting the afterlife.

But through the shadow cast by strife

there is something set to be a cauter,

trilling through the dark like a fife.

Drowning though I be, in the dark running rife,

still part of my soul remembers what it was I taught her:

though it can be a double edged knife,

Hope is strength, the antidote for the difficulties in life.

Definitions:

Trife - a state, characterised by trouble, desperation, struggle, poverty, helplessness and hopelessness.

Shife - aggressive looking, tough.

Cauter - a metal instrument, heated and used to cauterize bleeding tissues.

all photos in the body of the text credited to Lee Hunter @ladylee1313