Breathe

Water is like a thin blanket:

One of those flimsy ones that never seem to keep you warm

No matter how tightly you wrap it around your trembling body

Being submerged in the water is like

Crawling under the covers during a frigid winter night

But never being able to escape the eminent cold.

That’s what I feel, the moment my body makes contact with the water,

Forcing myself to adjust.

Water fills my lungs,

And salt dries my throat

As the waves capture me,

Pulling me under,

Until I’m blinded by the sea,

Afraid to open my eyes

Who was I to think

The sea and I were on good terms

For it seems like I’d jumped too far

Too deep

At that point, it’s too late.

Everything seems to shut down,

And I’m just a forgotten soul,

Pushed beneath the vicious waves of the ocean

The vicious waves

Of life.

I’m too small,

Shrinking until I’m nothing…

I’m nothing…

But it’s then,

As the waves pull me under

As the storm looms above me,

As chaos becomes imminent…

It’s then that I can

Breathe

Against all odds,

Against every sense in the world,

I can breathe.

You don’t have to be a mermaid to breathe underwater.

You don’t have to be a bird to fly across the sky.

You don’t have to be big, to survive in one big world.

You can be small.

You can be small

And still breathe.