My life can compare to the childish rampages alive in the ocean. The worst of the worst is the exhaustion of taking blow by blow of violent waves and then trying to take a breath is like trying to pump fiery saltwater through brittle, lifeless lungs, using a plastic straw. And I’m learning to roll with the waves, or I’m trying to. It’s kind of like taking that first sip of coke and then it hits you that it’s diet. This is not what I ordered. Except it stings like a b****. But it’s not just your throat. It lingers in your ears, your eyes, your mind, your soul...open wounds swimming in saltwater. Peace sometimes presents itself through the sizzle of the white foam as it creeps onto the shore, just grazing my toes, the whisper of an apology.

Life is grand and abudant, yet it’s salty and decieving. It’s recurring like the tide, but the wind spins with a mind of its own. Hurricanes are bound to shred hope to bits without a second of hesitation, if you allow it. A tsunami can scrape away the sweet taste of a dream until you find yourself mourning in the ruins of reality, if you give it the power to do so.

I can relate to the destruction and chaos of a storm to the pain I encounter, sure. What’s more powerful, more iconic than the wind and the rain or the ache in my chest? But I feel a great empathy for the ecoystem thriving beneath the storm. Belonging to a body of water, life blossoms in variety, but death and suffering are impartial. Am I the bait squirming on the line, being played as sacrificial poison? Or am I the stray passing by who was foolish enough to give in to shimmering desire, now pierced with regret, blood trickling from my lips?

I often feel caught in a net, in the dakest and coldest of waters. I got myself into this one. Escape appears feigned among trenches that inhabit nauseating fears. Escape itself derives from the unknown, scary as hell.
I don’t want to end up like some that I know of, my heart, gutted and graceless, limp on a silver platter, for others to pick and poke at. I don’t want to be a hobby, a waste of time. So when the ships come in, scatter! If you keep swimming in circles, they’ll pick you off easily. I’ve personally grown tired of it, wading in the shallow pools because it’s what feels safe, it’s what feels right.

It might be ridiculous of me to believe that fish sleep with their eyes open for two reasons. But there is a world of dangerous threats just waiting to claim them, all the while they exist in a very beautiful ambiance of color and diversity that should be embraced and explored while they still have the freedom to do so.

I want to travel in the warm path of the sunshine, glinting through the blue, but I’m keeping a tight hold on my heart, too afraid of letting it float to the surface. I don’t know who or what may come swooping down out of nowhere with their hooks and their tricks, preying on the brokenhearted.