The girl was on the rickety dock for months.
The dock was familiar, and it felt like home.
Sometimes she was closer to the shore, at other times closer to the water, but most of the time
She was sat safely in the middle of the dock.
Until one day
She realized that the water seemed to be getting closer.
Maybe the tides were changing, or it had rained so much that the water level had started rising.
Or maybe, just maybe, the girl had been moving
Unnoticed even to her.
Something had changed.
All of a sudden the girl found herself on the very edge of the dock.
Her toes peeked out over the water, the water that was so close, and she felt the spray of droplets tickle her feet. She stood like that for a few days, sobbing, and looking back at the path she had walked. Then, she took a deep breath, braced herself and stepped off the dock.
Splashing
Gasping
Reaching
Crying
Drowning.
The blue coated her.
The sea claimed her.
Under the surface everything was dark.
She was cold.
And so the girl came to live her life from way out at sea.
Every day she kicked her legs to stay afloat, even as she drifted further into the depths.
Sometimes, her head was fully above water, and she could breathe.
She could even feel the heat of the sunlight on her closed eyelids.
But when she tired of the effort it took to stay in the sun, she sank back into the water,
Where the monsters were lying in wait.
The strain of the struggle has warped the girl’s perception of time.
Two full years of her life led her to that dock, and now
She’s been in the water for two months.
Both stretches of time feel equally as endless.
Only one has come to an end.
The girl is in the water.
She isn’t waiting there to be saved. She knows how to swim.
She’ll swim back to shore when she’s ready.
(She’s just not ready.)
~
Ella
“It’s everything you ever want
It’s everything you ever need
And it’s here right in front of you
This is where you wanna be…
So tell me do you wanna go?” -The Greatest Show
(No.)
Sick and Sick of It 