How can a lake,
So warm in summer
Become black in winter?
Barren and desolate
No longer friendly and peaceful
But strange and distant
Like a friend’s betrayal.

I plunge into the water
Expecting to be swallowed up like a fish
Or a dolphin, where the water envelops me
But instead I receive a sharp shock
Like a smack in the face
For it is unwelcoming and hostile
Biting at me, beseeching me to leave
For my plunges are no longer welcome
Nothing is familiar to the lake anymore
It doesn’t recognize fish or plants or humans.

Yet as fogginess slowly turns my brain to ice
I will soon forget all life
Erased of all memories
Like the lake

But even so, I understand one thing-
My summer is gone
And this winter is back.
One day my lake will
Reawaken

Only then will I return.