My Escape In Writing

I'm gone

I could no longer feel the tips of my fingers. My bones felt frozen. My skin felt numb. All I could see was the ripples on the water surface above and the outline of trees. I could feel the intense stinging as the water filled my lungs. My eyes burned as I fought to keep them open. No air was left in my body. I couldn't move, I was stuck, I couldn't do anything. It was like I wasn't even there, but I could feel everything as if I was. It was if my veins were being filled with ice cold water. There was a panic that consumed me and all I could do was feel. I felt the water surrounding me and filling inside me, the cold that bit all around me, the burning and stinging of my throat and lungs and heart, the weight on my eyelids, the pain pinching my cheeks, the pain inside my head, my chest being crushed, everything pushing on my skull and all other bones, the weight of my clothes clinging on my body, my hair floating around and above my face. I felt all those things, therefore there was no room for the feeling of hope. I was hopeless and helpless. I fought for the surface, still, but I had to accept that I had lost. I still wasn't moving, no matter how hard I tried. My body had given up already, it was just about time for what was left of me to do the same. The surface just became further and further away. The trees surrounding and neighboring this lake became a blur, a green wall.  After so much panic and fighting put out by me, a wave of peace came over me. I accepted my fate, as it seemed to be the only choice left at this point. I wasn't strong enough in any way to fight till the end. I stopped trying to keep my burning eyes open. The pain was finally, but slowly, floating away as my eyes fully fluttered closed for the last time, my eyelids fused together. I could just feel the water, everything was the water. Air, at this point, would feel foreign, as would the Sun's warmth. Foreign would be, everything from that other world smart enough not to dare the risk of crossing over the cold, wet, inescapable threshold. I was not smart enough, I crossed, and my thoughtlessness finally caught me. My chaotic mind, for the first time, tarried in thought and was calm. I started to drift away, as if going to go to sleep, but somehow in a more peaceful manner. The pain was now fully gone, so I knew I was gone as well. Gone, in the understandable and comprehendible way. It seemed I was able to feel the rain, the wind, the world. I felt drops of rain water hitting the water's surface, then inevitably becoming part of the lake, such as I. I felt the wind sweeping against the trees and brushing their branches. I felt the turning of the world, slow, I think, but definite and smooth.
I am now one with rain and the wind, the water and the trees. I am now a part of everything, but part of nothing. I'm a lost breath, a misguided rain drop, a stolen coin, a fallen leaf, a misplaced trinket, a forgotten something, a remembered nothing. I seem to be free, yet I'm chained to the land where I lost my life. My spirit gets stuck in the wind and goes where it goes, but it still is tethered to this cold, empty, lonely place.
I'm gone. I'm not in pain anymore. I no longer have to worry. It could be okay now. I'm just gone.