Just Know I've Been Underwater

I sat there, underwater. With all the time I once gave up weighing down in every direction, I lifted my hands from my lap using every bit of my strength. They moved slowly from the pressure surrounding them, from my lap to my face. I went to dry the sweat from my forehead but it was only by habit.

So I sat there, underwater, with all the time in the world passing me by in a few short, desperate gasps of airs. I couldn't see more than five feet ahead of me but I managed to take hold of the few blurred rays of sunlight slicing through the salted water. These few slivers gave me a few days of life, if I could use them sparingly. My grip was stronger than ever before, my fingertips scored and they held on tight.

As the sun retreated, taking it's arms of light with it, it lifted me slowly from my watery rocking chair. Each hour that crept by brought me just that much closer to the air above me, but the nearer I rose to surface the darker it became. The once secure rays of light, that at the time felt like the worlds strongest hands, began to loosen their grip on me. If I could feel my sweat, this would be the moment that it would become alarming to me, but I wasn't letting go no matter how dark and unsettling the situation grew.

I wrapped the fading rays of light around my wrists to take a better hold. They were the only light left. The stars didn't show, no lighthouse was in sight, these beams were saving my life without either of us realizing it. Time wasn't on our side and my lungs were starting to feel it. I felt lightheaded, delirious, and I'm sure I slipped in and out of consciousness a few times. I shut my eyes for what seemed like a few seconds, to try to regain a sense of reality, but I forgot to open them for hours.

I woke up to the sounds of birds but like as if I was having a nightmare, gasping for air, and sun burnt. The sand I felt on my knees was a sensation that I had not felt in so long that it almost hurt to touch. I looked at my hands, the same hands that took hold of the sun. They looked like they had belonged to a hundred year old man at this point. My skin felt heavier and weighed down on my bones more than I remembered but I was surrounded by air for the first time in a long time. I began to shiver but it made me smile. I took a breath, I was alive but the water made it abundantly clear that it had left its mark.