The Escape
When you are low
and I do mean low, mind you.
like, hit rock bottom and start digging
deeper and deeper
into a pit of despair so deep,
rock bottom would seem like a good place to have a nice picnic
if only you had someone to share the picnic table with.
You have a choice.
Move more earth,
Pick up the pickaxe and shovel and get to work,
Setting a record low as the absence of hope hits a record high
Overheated and defeated
As you find out you really cannot tunnel through the earth.
Try as you might,
You cannot dig yourself up instead of down,
In the exact same place you were just a few short months ago

Or you can try to claw your way out,
Survival of the fittest
Climb the sides of your pit, your hand built coffin
Nails split, sweat blinding you
Bruised and bloody
Using the very tools to get out
that you just used to get in
because it’s all you have anymore.
Struggling, sliding down the walls of the prison you built for you
Mud covered, sore.
You may make it out of the hole
Though not even half of what you once were.
Continuing in the same path
Same thing, different day
Headed for a pit twice as deep as the one from which you just emerged.

Or you may choose the third option.
Just stop
Realize you might just be there for a reason.
Look up at a view no pit can take from you.
That no hole can conceal
The soft dark sky,
Countless pinpricks of light
Familiar.
Familiar but different.
Brighter, more intense, more alive
It is the familiarity that will be your savior
It is the difference that will be your sustenance.

Suddenly escape seems trivial.
Perhaps you aren’t in such a bad place
No worse than where you came from
But as soon as that thought surfaces,
You find yourself suddenly out in the cool night air
Relieved
but confused.
“How did I escape?” you ask the wind.
“Why?”
But there are no answers in the dark night around you.
You are alone
But you realize now
What you should have before.
Alone.
Alone is ok.