Drowning in a sea of damnation.
Trying to keep my head above the waves of what ifs,
Choking on the if onlys.
Wanting to know was it me who was not enough
Or was it you who did not care enough?
How do I survive this endless circle of blame,
Step away from what cannot be changed?
How do I walk away
When hope still lingers we can survive?
How do I let go and once again become
Whole?
~ © 2013 Heidi Barnes
From a prompt on Kellie Elmore’s Website.
To See What I See 
I love the metaphors used here. Those of us who have walked this walk know the feelings of drowning and choking yet fear the same if we make a change. Little do we know that in the leaving we come up for air.
That first step is always the hardest and scarcest, and the ones after are not always easy, but we’ve just got to keep going or we will lose ourselves completely.