Finding Peace

I stopped walking, I stopped moving, I stopped breathing. I was barely even thinking. I couldn’t go on. My legs, shuddering in the cold crisp air, collapsed under me, and I fell to the soft pine needles and leaves that covered the ground. I blinked, again and again until my eyes could not open any more, until I really let myself go. I don’t know what happened, but everything went black inside my head, and I felt a fleeting moment of absolute bliss, complete and utter euphoria that filled my body like blood. Is this what its like to die? It’s nice, I think. Nicer than the thought of death, we all have such a fear of death but this is nothing to be scared of. Painless, I feel like I’m floating, like I’m flying, like I’m swimming in a pool of happiness. Consciousness soon starts to slip from my grasp, but I don’t try resist. Something, someone, lifts me up gently, holding me with warm arms. Maybe it’s an angel. I’ll never know, and I think I smile as I slip between the waves of consciousness that I’ve been drowning in.



The world blurs and shifts above me, colors and shapes looming in and out of focus. I close my eyes, sinking back into my dream world that was so much nicer than the blinding lights and shaky vision of the real world.



I’m swimming, diving and dancing in a deep blue world that never ends, that never has a floor or a surface. The water rushes through my bones and around and around my mind. I kick and kick but the water doesn’t stop, the light above me doesn’t get any closer and suddenly I’m drowning, I’m dying, suffocating in a world that was once so calm. In the sea, the ocean that I once paddled in with my friends, looked for fish with my brother in, is now killing me. I can’t tell if I’m dying from the inside or the outside, if I’m killing myself or if it’s killing me. I no longer know if I am fighting the sea, or if the sea is fighting me.



I stop fighting. Or the sea stops fighting me. I sink, slowly, slowly, deeper into the water. The sea is cold now; no longer is it full of bliss and happiness. Its cold, dark. I see figures, people moving and swimming around me. I scream but nothing comes out. They’re coming closer, but the current is pulling me away. I want to open my arms, swim towards them and fall asleep in their dark arms, listening to their slow breaths warm against my neck. Feel their soft hair stroke my skin, as tender as their hands are rough on mine. But the figure, he just slips back into the shadows. I’m not even sure if he was real. I’m not sure what is real, and what it isn’t anymore.
The sky blossoms a beautiful clear blue, miles and miles above me. I want to touch the sky, pull the blue down as if it is paper, rip it into a million pieces. I try lift just a finger, but I can’t. I’m so, so tired. I’ve slept for a thousand nights and being awake is just a distant memory to me. I want to close my eyes, but the darkness threatens to pull me down again and I know the light is the only thing keeping me going. Everything feels heavy.