Breathe [Collection of Short Stories/Spoken Word]

Last Thoughts Before You Die

A victim who had drowned had told me the oddest thing I've ever heard. He told me that right before that instinct of breathing under water had become your last thoughts and regrets of what you should have done. Perhaps I should have drank ten shots in a row that night, perhaps I should have looked right at the sunsets light, even if it drove me blind.

I remember one day as a nine year old, I swam in the pool with my father relaxing on a chair with a nice cold lemonade on his side. I dared swim deeper, testing my pride as  my toes no longer touched the pool floor, and second by second, my lungs were on the edge to have them tear. Right before my instinct to breathe underwater, I wondered to myself: why the fuck did I give my sister the last slice of pizza? It was a matter of moments until my father dove in to rescue us from ourselves. 

Was this really happening?

I was hanging by a string if it weren't for my father, hanging by a blur of my own life disappearing right in front of my eyes. Creating ties of promises and lies of hatred that no one would be there for me. Right in front of my eyes, before I would die, was my father telling me that he was here. That there was nothing left to fear if I held onto his arms. Today, I cry - looking into a shape of a leaving father, falling into an abyss of "why are you so far"?