Waterboarding

You heard about pain through others' experiences.

To recognize the signs, the texture of it. You had been a stranger to the feeling, and you were grateful for it.

And then you fell headfirst. Unexpectedly. Suddenly.

In retrospective, it was growing, looming. You never saw it coming at all until it clawed its way in.

The first hit wasn't the worst. Nor the second. You thought riding those first waves was going to be it. Nothing prepared you for the aftershock.

It feels like drowning. You had already swallowed liquids once or twice, yet this is torture at its finest. You can't breathe. But you're not dying either. It's the longest second and your hands are tied. Pushing against it doesn't help. Staying calm does nothing either.

Is this what it's supposed to be like? Learning to grow gills when you haven't even grown into your own lungs? Into a heartbeat that has always been way too heavy for your chest?

How do you make it stop?

There are seconds in between each bucket full of tears. You try to hang onto what little sunlight you can see, only to realize it's only a dying lightbulb. Can't remember what warmth felt like.

Stars are nothing but the spaces between the threads. Should you wish onto the biggest gap? The brightest one?

There is nothing but the salty remain on your lips.

Your head isn't a hideout either. Those walls are not a home, but a prison. Perpetual solitary confinement in the darkness.

Pieces of light flash, and you beg they would stop. Emptiness is better than this. Mourning what you had, what cannot be. Picturing what currently is hurts just as bad.

Another splash.

If you could see it from the outside, you'd realize there's a smiley face painted onto the fabric that's suffocating you. Would that make you feel better? Does it help?

It smeared over the constant washing. Goodness knows how long its shape will last. Hope it'll carbon print onto your own head, morph your agony away.

Part of you feels you deserve this. You were ungrateful. Took things for granted. Like the softness and the kindness of the light that shined around you. And you stupidly put your hand before your eyes to cover the brightness. How foolish that was.

You know you would give the air that you have saved up in between waves to feel gaiety once more.

Now, if your hands were free, you could try to stop the water with your bare hands. But you know it would slip through your fingers. Just like what once was and won't be. It tastes like mistakes and regret, now that you think abour it. Of your own deficiency.

You should've learned how to swim, how to hold your breath. You should've been born with scales and fins. Chosen a different path to thread.

But at the end, if/when the water is done with you, would you know how to breathe on your own if there's no more air?