Dissipation

Standing on a knife's edge
the pain floating like
a searing, serrated edge
hacking away to
dissipate me into a
thousand strands of nothingness
and morning dew --

I look up and see a smile
or hear a laugh and word
of comfort keeping
me in this balancing act
on the thinly bladed
existence that is pain
and pleasure and everything
in between.

Perhaps it might not seem
that I dance in a shadowed
in-between of nothingness
of self and tears - leaving
smiles for sunshine or a
shaded day where once
we walked uninhibited
by fear of what might be.

I still laugh and cheer
and watch and wait while
I dissipate and float
away -- until nothing of me
remains.

© Eleanor Clark
30 May, 2016