On January 13, 2012, it is the premature end of MY world as I know it.
I’ve been trapped on this sinking ship for seven hours,
But I’ll you my story about purgatory in a minute--

The Costa Concordia has pulled a Titanic!
The hull is ripped, the decks are tipped,
This luxurious cruise liner with fine dining and shows is making its dramatic exit to the soundtrack of broken china and thuds of people tumbling down flights of sideways staircases.

“Let us go down and confound their speech,” and so God
Scatters society, twists their tongues so there will be nothing but indecipherable Babel.
4,250 blood and tear streaked faces express the culmination of chaos in 23 different languages and I have never felt so lost and alone in my whole life.

I’m dropped, smothered under a pile of 30 dog eat dog bodies crawling over each other in a broken lifeboat swinging a hundred feet above thrashing waters,
Then I’m swung over railings, and suddenly everything around me starts to blur together and I feel numb from shock, and
Surrender, as I realize it’s already

3:00 AM. And I’ve been trapped on this sinking ship for seven hours?!
I’m the last of a couple hundred passengers clinging to the slippery surface of Concordia’s titanic skirts, gleaming white against the pitch black backdrop of endless sky and sea.
We’re at the brink of death.
The people of Babel are now somber and silent,
But then a song
Rises from the back of my mind

(singing) “When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll…”

I wait,
And anticipate
The reveal of Heaven’s gate.

On January 23, 2013, I’m shouting a rousing toast to 21 years of life,
And indeed all has been well with my soul, and I continue to sing songs about life because now I know that

These rises and falls have been absolutely vital to my life long survival
And today I get to make my way up again with the tide, tossing aside the tethers of hypervigilance, hallucinations, and self-hatred from the past year.
And if anyone questions my rosy cheeks and beaming grin I’ll tell them it’s not from the wine but the baptizing waters of Giglio
Because that night, I fell to the darkest depths
And thought of death,
And rose again,
Purged of my old identities and expired achievements,
And it was all so I could learn to better navigate my fate towards new platforms and triumphs to come.