Helpless, overwhelmed,
you watch the tsunami build
on a horizon dark and chaotic.
The sky is obscured by storm clouds,
pregnant with violence.
Light leaks from a landscape
drained of colour and life:
sound echoes ominously,
dull, threatening, metallic:
engulfed by the cacophony of your mind.
The vortex is here:
you have circled long around the edge,
but now the blackness calls
and you feel yourself slipping,
without strength, without hope.
Your mind races, tired, confused,
as you search for the key,
the lifeboat that will ride the tempest,
and sustain you until a brightening dawn:
you can almost reach its safety...almost.