little girl rowing down the stream,
unafraid of what lay beneath,
down the waterfalls intrinsically leads to the thoughts of the end,
but that's not what it seems.
not for the little girl rowing down the stream.
she sings to herself,
a little rhyme she's learned back in the cottage with her father and her sister,
but her oars are cracking,
it's screaming against the waves,
its desperation for her to row back, to row with the tide instead and face the inevitable.
but the little girl knew its all an impediment to living.
she needs to see her father.
she needs to feel the softness of her bed and the crickets in the night and the creaking of the floorboards when she sneaks up at night to get milk for her thirst, or for the cat that climbs her window right before she sleeps.
nothing like the oars can coerce her to do otherwise.
little girl,
rowing and rowing,
her arms aching,
her stomach sinking,
skin bruising and darkening,
everything in her was reaching and reaching,
reaching for what, she hadn't realised.
but she rows and rows.
she'd think about it all later.
now, she only had to live.
she had to.
and she has.
