Blue Goggles

This morning,

the water was 

frigid, 
constricting her courage 
until she could no longer find it

like her blue goggles, 

no, not those blue ones, 

the OTHER blue goggles- 

and her swimsuit was 

too tight and 

too long and 

there were 

too many people 

cheering her name. 

And I understood: 

the feeling of 

everything not right, 
too much of 

something and 

not enough of 

everything else- 

how unbalanced that can feel, 

as if you might trip 

and the world would keep 

spinning away from you 

as you grasped for 

the nearest asteroid, 

desperate for anything 

to hold onto. 

And it occurred to me, 
my darling,

you are my blue goggles. 

Nothing can be 

quite right 

without you.