Tepid

I tested the water
Easy, easy at first
A tentative touch
Apprehensive at best
Petrified at worst
Wanting it to burn
For old time’s sake
A scalding lake
To cleanse my sin
Sloughing off this skin
Like so much steam
But instead it’s tepid
Cool and clear
And mockingly calm
Desperately shallow
Like I used to be
Before you shook my faith
And I was baptized again
In the essence of you
Always so lukewarm
When what I crave is heat
Boiling over into love
The way it used to be
Before I met the ghost
Of who I might become
Rising in the steam
But that was just a dream
Testing the waters.

Sam