The bridge is strong and gracious,
proud.
Connecting banks of dual self,
and spanning black waters deep
and predatory. Rapacious.
Singing songs to suck you in
and drown you
in the roiling waters of their murky lies.
Whispering tales
of your hopelessness and failure.
She has heard so many sighs
of condemned souls which walked
across her span to their predicted death.
I found my shadow self today and watch
as she emerges from the dark Venetian walls
to greet me like she knew me centuries ago.
She watches me stand on this sighing bridge
Light and shadows, shadows and light,
and I lurk in dark places, shaking with fear,
lest my shadow can see her reflection
in my eyes.
But my bridge connects my alter and my ego.
She holds me high above the swishing, sucking
rivers of destruction. Sighing, knowing that
the choice is mine. I can stay on this bank or
cross
to the side that looks so dark, forbidding,
unknown.
Or I could jump and drown in suffocating lies
filling my lungs and soul with fetal waters -which?
The amniotic fluid lures me with escape -an end to the agony
of sorting through years of flotsam and jetsam,
driftwood of a life
lived partially.
But the bridge connects both paths
one to the other and back.
To cross to the other side
will not cause the bridge to collapse
nor my life to end.
The bridge will be there standing
as long as I need it to be.
And now I see light
tunnelled down through tall buildings,
splitting the two banks and illuminating
the waters surface with promises.