It's difficult. Everyone thinks I'm living toward my peak, but truthfully, I'm drowning. I've been in deep before, so far the sun looks wispy. When the wave comes and I go under, it's like I never learned to swim. My feet float below me, subconsciously fighting for the surface. I make an inch toward the light, but as I taste the sea's bitterness, I'm weighed down by the intoxication. It feels good to lie at the bottom, intoxicated by its salt—an illusion. I enjoy forgetting the pain as it drowns me in its heaviness. I become weak. The sun fades to blurry nothingness. Water fills my lungs. I feel suffocated, but it's not taking me. I lie in its suffering, wishing only to be above the surface— on a different shore. One the water can’t reach, where people can’t see me. To escape this deep blue sea. But this is reality. An anchor sinks beneath me, its chain wraps my soft skin, binding me to the bottom. I wonder if I’ll reach the top and breathe. It’s never if, but when— yet it feels the other way around. I'm struggling to be unbound. But now, I’m alone. Solo in this anchor of emotions, I’M DROWNING. Screaming, muffled by the void, trying to be heard. The one sworn from "I do" sees only my clothes, wondering what holds me. He once saw me through clear water. Now he sees like the others. "I really am trying," I whisper. Does he see me tearing the chain? I'm invisible to most, fading from his vision. I take my morning dose. Meant to keep me afloat. But there's a hole in its life jacket. They call me a fighter. But the past still replays. Now I face the present, haunted by the rusted chains. My life, to many, seems so short and accomplished. But through this drowning, I've lived a lifetime worth of suffering.