Sink.

Someone once told me that drowning was the most painless way to die. The most tranquil. The easiest for your family to handle, because they wouldn't have to see the body, unless by some act of God or nature washed the remains onshore. You're able to reach a state of serenity, acceptance, a sort of mental quietness that you wouldn't exactly be able to reach if you were burning to death.

I try to keep that in mind as I feel myself sinking slowly to the bottom of this vast body of water. I try to think about happiness and peace and quiet as my brain is racing with scenarios that I wish I could have experienced in my life.

Whoever that person was must have had a few screws loose, because the last thing I feel right now is fucking tranquil.

I guess, if I'm recounting my feelings of regret in the "now", in the present, I should express as to how I got here in the first place.

Life is hard. Life is unfair. And when life is hard and unfair, usually, people complain. People bitch and moan and vent and show some sort of emotion to prove that they're in distress. Well, that was never me. I was never one to complain, never one to rattle out a list of problems to closed ears that belong to those with even narrower minds. I was never one to talk, I was one to move on.

So I snapped, and then I jumped. That's to make a long story short.

Talking never helps, I would state so matter-of-factly when everyone else around me would plead for me to let words spill from my mouth like water was spilling into my lungs as I speak. I would shake my head and refuse the heart-to-hearts and the offers to vent.

And look where it got me.

Have you ever tried to breath underwater? It's not an easy feat. It's not a feat at all, unless you count "defeat". It doesn't work. I learn this the hard way, as water fills my lungs.

I kick the water around me, I kick and scream and thrash. I begin to try to swim, and I open my eyes to feel salt stinging my corneas. I shut my eyes, wincing in pain... this was not one of my better ideas.

Stuck underneath what's beginning to feel like a sidewalk mold being filled with cement.

I should have done my research.

Whoever the stupid fucker who said that drowning was a "peaceful" way to die obviously has never experienced asphyxia. They've never experienced what it feels like to think about how there's no way out.

I could kick and I could scream and I could try to swim all that I would like, but it wouldn't work. I'm wedged, fixed, trapped. My body has become one with the sea, so to speak. I am the water's property.

I could have gotten married, I could have been a pilot, I could have learned Italian, I could have owned a bakery. I could've, but now I'm falling slowly. Temporarily blinded by the saltwater in my eyes, and permanently suffering from asphyxia, I am stuck. I am stuck within the layers of the water, I am stuck in my own pain, and I am forever trapped with the blinding pain of "I could've been so much more".

But now I am forever destined to be bones, to be shark food. To be something searched for and forgotten about. To be just another statistic, I am forever wedged in the category of, "But she was such a quiet girl... she seemed alright..."

Have you ever had a claustrophobic fit? Where you feel like the walls are closing in and there are more people than there actually are in one room, where you feel like you cannot breathe, where you feel like doors and windows are useless? Like there's no escape?

Multiply that times ten. Now add water. And you'll have my predicament.

I'm being blanketed by waves as coherent thoughts cross my mind for what might be the last time. By some act of God, maybe I will be able to unlock the metaphorical cage and rise above the currents that carried me away and allowed me to sink by a stone. I remember the faces of the ones that I love as they beg me to speak up, to talk, to just tell them what was wrong. I remember never being able to explain it, never wanted to have to, and just ultimately forcing a smile and telling them that I was fine in my most convincing voice. And I miss those chances that annoyed me so much, because if I had just spoken up, I wouldn't be feeling this.

Discomfort, pain, sadness, anger, claustrophobia.

A glass box that's getting smaller, filled to the brim with water. I am a fish in a fishbowl. I am trapped, and I am sinking, feeling number and smaller.

Numb, but not euphoric.

I thrash about with the rest of my strength leaving my body. This is one mess I cannot escape; this is one thing that will not be undone; this is the end, this is my end.

This is what it feels like to sink.