I see her standing there,

ready to leap across oceans.

But I am afraid that she will drown,

so she is imprisoned.

She is high and dry,

tens of miles from the nearest lake.

She is imprisoned.

I see her crouching there,

absorbing the heat that emanates from the fireplace.

But I am afraid that she will burn,

so she is imprisoned.

She is cold and shivering,

naked in a frosty, wintry wood.

She is imprisoned.

I see her kneeling there,

praying before the altar.

But I am afraid that she will rise while I sink and burn,

so she is imprisoned.

She is hopeless and desolate,

one who roams among heretics.

She is imprisoned.

I see her laying there,

perched up in a cherry tree.

But I am afraid that she will plummet,

so she is imprisoned.

She is trapped by valley walls,

walls of soil, grass, and thorns.

She is imprisoned.

I see her standing in that valley,

and it starts to rain.

So I am afraid that she will drown.

Yet she is imprisoned,

and she no longer wishes to follow me.

"Hurry," I yell, "for I fear you will drown!

She cries: "Tell me, would you rather I drown, I burn, or I plummet, for I know that this cannot continue.  My imprisonment has doomed me, and you were a fool to try and protect me from the world.  For when I knelt at the altar, the Lord told me that I would perish soon, yet I would rise while you would sink, and I had no fear."

Fear.

Fear is why she was imprisoned.

I was scared for her,

but I was even more scared for myself,

and that is why I have doomed myself,

to be eternally separated from her.

All this

I realize,

as her last bubbles reach the surface

of a river that was not present ten minutes ago.

As she rises,

and as I am destined to sink and burn,

I pray that

she is no longer imprisoned.