Overflow

there was a time
when I was afraid
of fullness,
too scared to reach
the frontiers
of my emotions,
and the dark edges
of my fallible existence,
and so I would skirt the shores,
keeping away from the waves
rushing in excitedly
to sweep me off my feet,
and I would watch them
with feigned indifference,
from the safe rims
of my half-open eyes,
and dip my trembling toes
into the receding waters -
the easier part of the flow;

until that one moment
when I looked into the eyes
of a foaming wave,
running in to gather me in her arms,
filling me with a terrifying anticipation,
washing me over with her love,
and grinding me to a deathly pause
on the sands of uncertainty;
and in the quiet presence
of the firmament above,
my being rested among the waves,
as I was held in her endless dance
of arrivals and goodbyes,
of losses and renewals,
of belonging and abandonment,
of fullness and emptiness,
and I knew then
in that one blessed moment,
how to hold myself
as a brimming cup,
where parts of me took form,
from the brink of that fullness,
born from the overflow
of a love
that cannot be held back
but only given and shared,
with a world that thrives
on quiet unseen abundance.