Instructions for loneliness:

Dive as far as you can into it

Be immersed

Swim around for a while

Search for something

You’ve never seen before

Come up for air

Breathe what you found

back to the world

Do not let it weigh you down.

Tread, there

Rest on the surface

Get level

Then dive again

Explore, get deep

—deeper than you ever thought possible.

It’s cold and dark down there

Heavy and murky

Low visibility

Freezing cold

And you keep moving through the dark

Feeling your way along the bottom.

You have to keep moving

So you don’t freeze, or sink—

Stopping now means certain death.

Explore with every sense

Work the darkness in new ways

We all can adapt.

Now it’s time to come up for light, air

Float star-shaped

rest in sunkissed skin

For just as long as you need

But don’t get so comfortable that

Your eyelids creep shut—

Stay open.

Breathe in, out, in.

Dip down

Sink

Begin again.

Author: Renée Picard

Image: Jeremy Bishop at Unsplash