I'm racing my ghosts.

They drift silently

Across black water

That contrasts nicely with

The white fog that utterly surrounds me

As I desperately swim

Making ripples in the glass surface

Hoping to feel my kicking feet

Hit gritty mud

And warm slimy moss

Between my toes

As I crawl ashore,

But the fog muffles

All sound

And the splashes I make seem

To be eerily small

In the vastness of the pond

Faces appear like wax paper masks

In and out

In and out

Of the fog,

Racing beside me

As my arms become

Harder to lift

And the water drains

Energy from my increasingly sluggish

Movements;

The ghosts tell me that my swimming

Will never accomplish anything,

They tell me to let myself

Slide,

Sink into the water.

I don't listen.