There is a lake, and it abhors all boats

With their roiling or else their incessant rocking

And the loud screaming when they fail to float.

Capsizing leaves swimmers, who aren’t welcome

They pollute the lake whose banks they shouldn’t have left

Some waters are there just to look winsome.

But who can blame those on shore who soak feet

Then soak knees, then wet hips until they come to wade?

A cool lake tempts more than summer-hot peat.

Thus, it’s that only when without visit

The lake revels in proclaiming tranquility

Undisturbed, it calls itself calm – is it?

When alone there is some security

None witness should ill pass and no one can be harmed

As it will, the lake may flood or empty.

Waters no one nears cannot be a tomb

Untested ripples could be waves but all stay safe

The lake from corpses, the people from doom.

There is a lake, and it loathes disturbance

In the absence of bother, it calls its tide quelled

And denies still its state of turbulence.

The day that I stopped dying, debts came due.

The pawn shop rang ‘cause I was short a few

And said they’d sold my hopes for when I grew

And childhood I’d traded would soon go too.

The bank then wrote to me about my wage

To stress I could no longer remortgage

As I lacked future, far as they could gauge

Having borrowed much at too young an age.

I still owed to my past the happiness

I’d swapped for skills so I’d feel less helpless

And I owed to my future much success

I’d sold for time to heal my hopelessness.

Some kids mortgage maturity to pay

To keep their families’ trauma at bay.

Generations bankrupt themselves that way

Loaning from later to feed their today.