ripple of a dream

I walked to the dock in the amber glow of the setting sun and I couldn’t help but dip my feet in the water feeling it like silk against my soles and I couldn’t help but grind my toes into the mud and feel every grain of sand and shell and I couldn’t help but notice my footprints clear as day as if to say 

“I’m here I exist this is real” 
but I couldn’t stop myself from walking deeper until the subtle waves lapped at my aching neck and I kept going step after step as if the man in the boat wasn’t there staring his jaw dropping just like his rod as his lure snags and as if my dog wasn’t barking whining splashing after me saying 

“don’t leave mom I need you here so bad”
and then the sudden plop of a large frog jumping from the reeds beside me couldn’t help but snap me out of my evening daydream or was it a nightmare or was it anything like that and am I just 

trying to prove to myself that what I’m feeling isn’t real and that I am here and I am needed and even though I feel like I am stifled suffocating drowning I will remember how to swim and I will find the honey hued shore lined with five point bucks and does and fawns gazing at me with their quiet strength as I emerge and gasp a breath of the cooling air of autumn for the first time in years