Drowning

12/18/21

I forget what it’s like to breathe, sometimes.

It’s like I forget to breathe,

Or sometimes I just forget how to,

And no matter how hard I try,

It’s only stagnant air,

And it feels like I’m drowning.

Not suffocating, though.

Suffocating is too harsh,

Too real,

Too abrupt,

Too violent of an end.

When I drown,

It’s a slow panic that seeps into my brain rather than a shock to my system.

Suffocating is too violent of an end.

When I drown,

I float.

I can’t breathe, but somehow it’s ok.

I think it’s the way I want to go.

Not hard and fast,

Not on impact,

But in a way I can hold the end,

Embrace it like a friend,

Pretend it’s fine.

When you drown,

You have time to think,

To be grateful,

To be remorseful,

To breathe.

Until you can’t.

Because I can’t.

I guess that’s the whole point.

You breathe until you don’t and when you finally do, it’s your last,

Life went by too fast,

Like the bullet,

Like the car,

Like your joy,

But never the regret.

Never the regret.

That one is a slow kind of death that isn’t enough to kill our bodies or minds but enough to kill our souls slowly but surely.

It’s kind of like when your dad left and your mom blamed you.

It hurt, and it killed you in a way, even though you kept breathing,

Kept walking,

Kept swimming.

But now you’re drowning and it’s the end and all you want is for the quiet to say it loves you, too.