When the River Stops Flowing..

A poetic look at the emotional turmoil that lingers after a bad breakup, or loss of a loved one.

Sometimes I feel like paint on a canvas, swirling together to create a magnificent portrait. Yet, every once and a while, a hose comes by, blasting water at my smudged self until all the paint drips to a muddy mess forgotten and unloved. Other times I feel like the canvas, eager to help create a beautiful thing, rather than be it. Sometimes I hold a painting to beautiful, so rare, so gorgeous that when the hose comes again to rinse it away I grow sad. At times, too sad to care if the next painting will be better or even more magnificent, even falling so far as to think I will never hold a painting again. In this valley of my life, where are my rivers? My green pastures? My den? Where are the birds that sing and the wolves that dance? Why has my valley been covered in lonely ice? I howl to the sky, asking for companionship, but no reply. No avail. I am lost. Was there something this creature has done? Were my fangs to sharp? My legs too fast? My heart too large or perhaps...too small? When the river stops flowing, does one stay and hope it starts again? Or does one move on to find a new home, new rivers and valleys. I do not know that the river will flow again, I cannot tell if the winter will go. I hope for the best, but this snow holds my heart in it as well. How do I escape? Must I tear my cold heart from the ice and carry my frozen feet across the wasteland in the hopes of warmth? or do I wait for warmth to return to me first, or something new and warm to fill the valley? When the river stops flowing and the heard has all gone, when the pack is naught and one is alone in the blizzard. How can one ever...ever survive? Remembering when the river did flow, when I was that beautiful painting, it makes me want to stay. Freeze to death in the memories of what was. Yes, the dark sleep when the world doesn't seem so cold before it all fades to black. Like the little match girl, freezing to death by heat of only a match, but dying in the sweet imagined embrace of her lost love. Is that who I am? Is that who I will be? I've been spited, hated, spit upon, kicked and shunned. Is there no home but this waste for me? Are there no others like me wanting only a friend in this desolate horror? How can I, where will I get the strength to leave this place? This was my home for so long, but now it is cursed. How can I leave? What if the new world shuns me as this one has and turns me to bones? Bleached in the sun or frozen in my hide beneath layers of cold, ashen white. I fear this place, I fear leaving this place. My pulse is slowing and I lay down to rest, just a moment then I'll be free. I'll be okay, I'll leave this place. Search on for new loves. Is that blood I smell? My paws are dry and cracked, cold. I breath in, then out. My breath rising in a cloud of mist. There is nothing left for me here, there may not be anything for me out there. Perhaps it's too late. Am I moving anymore? Am I breathing? Is it dark or are my eyes closed. I can't feel the cold. Have I reached the new world? Am I safe from pain and death? I can't feel myself move, I can't hear the wind. Have I died? Has the river started flowing or stopped again? Have I come home? Is winter over? Just tell me everything is going to be okay. Tell me everything...is going to be okay. Tell...me...ev... And the river stopped flowing...as the birds spread their wings