I want to feel the water fill my lungs,
As I fight despite myself for survival.
The fish and marine animals watch impassively
I sink deeper and deeper into the darkness of the depths of the ocean.
The salt water stinging my eyes.
My lungs ready to burst, trying to pull in air where there is none.

I watch as the light is replaced by an ever growing darkness.
This feels familiar
Hands pull me down, grasping gently
I struggle, despite myself, against the comforting darkness
I struggle to break free from the grasp of the past
I struggle.
Despite myself I struggle.

The darkness, that part of myself that is so comforting,
The isolation that surrounds me as the touch of the dead pull me further and further from the light.
The darkness, spreading out from inside of me
Surrounding me

The light fades and I stop fighting.
There is peace here.
There is acceptance and there is comfort.

Yet.

There is a part of me that is still struggling
Despite myself.
Pushing back the comfort of the darkness,
The peace, the quiet and the acceptance

The light starts to return as I am released, one hand at a time,
I swim up, towards the cold, my lungs ache and my eyes sting
I want to go back down, I want to be surrounded by the isolation and by those who have gone before me.

I break through the ice
Tears streaming from my eyes
Cold seeping into every part of my being

I want to quit.
I want to stop.
I want to follow in her footsteps and walk off the edge.
I want to be someone else, something else.

I want so badly to just stop.
But I can’t.
I never could.

Because inside that darkness is a light that is too powerful to extinguish.
I am so many and only one.
I struggle and I fight even though all I want is to let the waves take me away.

I am not my mother.
I am me.
I do not know who that is, not yet, but I am not going to stop.
No matter how much I wish I could.

The voices call to me.
They are waiting for me.
They are eternal.
They combine with the waves to create a cacophony of longing and yearning

Peace.
Rest.
Acceptance.
Sweet blissful darkness.

Guess it will just have to wait.
I will go get a tattoo instead.
(How that for an ending?)

By Jess
9-25-2017