I died three years ago – but when I close my eyes I can still feel my body getting colder and the suffocation becoming more intense as I drown in the water surrounding me. It’s sort of like your worst nightmare come true. As if everything you’ve ever feared is happening and you’re just there watching-helpless and losing the battle. I hear the sound of laughter and teenagers all around as the pressure builds up in my ears, causing the most horrific pain, before I finally surrender- feeling a painful relaxation of my struggling body that was attempting to save myself. It was too late. A broken heart, a vivid imagination, and clenched fists go limp with defeat- but this isn’t me. It can’t be me! I must be standing in the wings, watching horror scenes. Yet indeed, it is my lungs that are full of water, and my mind that has been damaged and destroyed. Brainwashed by a sea of blackness to the point where my vision is impaired. At that moment- I was pronounced dead. Everything went silent. No one tried to save me – I couldn’t even rescue myself – our world made it impossible.

Yet I still have a pulse- and a functioning body that is capable of going through the motions. The farthest depth of the ocean is most definitely rock bottom, and even though my heart is still beating, I am long gone. I tried to make it out, but every journey- I only made it as far as hovering just under the surface. I do not think that I will ever reach above water. No one understands. I am lost in this universe. Sleepless nights all led up to that night I died. People thought I was crazy, and so I learned to keep things to myself. Little secrets that drove me insane. Anxiety sinking deep inside of my veins, and spreading throughout my entire body- pouring out in the form of tears, which later dried on my pillowcase.

The night they never dried, I knew it was the end. I could see people around me living, and I felt like I was drowning – like a never ending sensation of suffocation. Me- an invisible soul of course- no one noticed, and my life slowly ended.

I realized that I was that girl in the wings after all, and I was watching everyone live their lives around me. Horror scenes blazed at me, disguised as happy ones. It’s like being a puppet- having your strings be controlled by someone else as you watch others succeed, live, accomplish, get the guy, earn that promotion, and anything else you can think of. I tried to push forward, but failed every time. I’m stuck, but continue to grow older- one day time will run out.

Those tears that never dried on my pillowcase – the only thing convincing me I was still alive.
But- no! I can’t still be alive can I? I drowned three years ago! Yet, I do have that pulse…and a dry mouth, with a now relaxed body and a monotone mind. There must be a reason I’m still here. Me, as well as every other teenage misfit and underdog – and the more I analyze it the more I believe we are all actually dead in fact.
Destroyed and killed by the idea of perfection.
Truthfully, imperfections are what make people gorgeous inside and out. That doesn’t matter of course- my generation was not raised to learn that belief. Scary to think that our world is actually the living dead. But there has to be a reason I’m still here.
There has to be a reason I ended up in that ocean…and barely survived.
After all- I can’t swim, and I would have never made that dive.