I fell in a puddle

I fell in a puddle this week.  It was very shallow yet very deep.

I could not fight my way all the to the surface.

I swam and swam and barely got my nose out to breathe.

Still, my eyes have been covered in the water, brackish and stale.

I am attracting bugs: mosquito larva are my only friends here.

I don’t want to stay here so I swim and and I swim.

How can there be an undertow in a puddle?

What is it I am fighting so hard?

There is more here than meets the eye, so to speak.

If I let myself sink any deeper into this puddle I am aware of its deception;

It is really a whirlpool.

It has layers upon layers of dangerous suction and it wants to pull me down to its depths: to eat me up.

I could, though, just relax into it and stop trying.  Maybe at the bottom there would be mermaids who would crown me with garlands and welcome me softly to their watery realms.

Probably not.

More likely they would be fanged harpys; biting me and strangling me with their boughs of seaweed.

I cannot relax here in this puddle.

I must keep my nose up until I can push myself back out.

I’ll not become fodder for baby insects nor swept away by the currents of my own dark imagination.

I will look up to the sunshine and swim hard towards the light.