"The blue boat" by Oak

A blue boat rests on my dock

It arrives once a year

It brings no one, and it takes no one

It holds no maps, no navigation, no sense of direction

Every year, it leaves

The next year, it comes back

It stops on my dock

It leaves from my dock

No one sees it but me

Even then, I don’t hear it leave

I wake up, and it’s gone

A fleeting memory

Was it ever really there?

Or was it a fragment of my mind,

Something I conjured from broken pieces of my life?

Yet, I think again–

If madness had taken me wouldn’t I feel its breath?

No, I recall:

There is no captain, no passengers, no crew

The boat is always empty

I simply must be going insane

After all, when I see the boat

It always seems to be night

And darkness tells too many lies

You think you see things

Like monsters under your bed

It turns your heartbeat into footsteps

Thudding inside your skull

But it’s really just your mind

Restless and ill at ease

You let these thoughts linger too long,

Making you run in circles

Until your body finally finds sleep

Maybe that’s what my mind does

Tire me

Maybe I should forget it

Maybe I should move on

But it’s never that simple

I come back to my dock

Every

Year

I look for the boatThe boat with no purpose

But to taunt me with its peeling blue paint

And its tattered, muddied sails

Which leaves its imprint in my head,

So when I close my eyes, I still see it

But it always comes empty

It always leaves empty

And somehow, it leaves me a little emptier too