Snail Pace

I’m a snail.

In my dream.

On a beach.

On the rough, hot sand.

Burning my delicate under carriage.

Charing my thin, soft skin.

I have to get off this heat. Remove myself from this burn.

Make it to the rocks.

Slithering.

Centimeter by centimeter.

The roughness is unforgiving

But I'm close to the stones.

So close I can see them

Moving slowly.

So slowly, I’m afraid.

But incapable to rush.

With this shell I carry.

The shell I like to hide in

When things get difficult.

Or when I feel alarmed.

The shell I retreat to for safety

But now, I only feel the weight on my back.

I fear my shell is holding me behind.

Slowing me down.

As I need to find a way out from the blistering heat

Consumed with my path

Obsessed with my speed.

My worry stifling my creativity

In finding a way up.

Out.

The pressure I must unplug

Damning myself to be quicker.

To make it I must uproot that weed.

Let the creative mind free to unleash.

Thinking outside the box.

Outside this beach, Outside this sand I stand in

Outside my circumstance

To paint the picture out.

To tell a story of survival.

Yet, I am a snail.

Moving at a snail pace.

Only as I can.

Slowly.

So Slowly.

Away from the water.

Onto the rocks.

The bumpy, rough, jagged boulders.

Where the terrain is difficult,

but safe from the scorching sand

and the crashing water.

The powerful waves.

The waves I have no chance against.

Not my snail body.

With no legs or arms to swim.

Convinced the salt in the water alone

Would kill me.

Absorb me.

I have to think above my limitations

I need to persist climbing the uphill battle.

Carry on the process.

The journey.

The struggle up.

Slither by slither.

Crawling through the weeds

And over the seeds along the way.

Slither by slither

Slowly.

So slowly.

At my snail pace.

In the way only I can do.

Continuing on

Until I reach my destination.