I made me stronger

You just made me cry

The planks creaked as I reached the end of the walkway. The water between me and everything else swayed effortlessly, yet it was flawless. How? How was it able to sway to the rhythm of the world without falling out of tune?

A teardrop fell into the sea, wrinkling it for a second and then absorbed into the creases.

Weak. Weak weak weak. I didn’t have the right to cry. But my eyes didn’t listen. Sobs shook my shoulders, trying to escape the cage in my chest. My hands shook as I tried to calm down, to push all these feelings away. The different versions of me were flickering and overlapping, and I didn’t know what was real anymore. If I was even a whole person anymo-

I blinked.

Something was wrong with my reflection. Slowly, ever so slowly, her mouth had cracked into a smile.

I wasn't smiling. My smiles were plastered on every morning and peeled off every night, like a second skin. This one was warm and gentle and beautiful. My reflection’s eyes were flowing with tears, but she looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She reached a hand out to me, and I imitated her movements. I would give anything to become her, to live her life, for that smile on my face. My fingers stretched towards my perfect reflection, and I leaned dangerously over the edge of the pier. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

I fell.

Gravity was reversed. I was flying, flying toward something better, flying up up up and away from it all. The tips of our fingers touched and a hand grabbed mine. It guided me towards the water. The glass surface cracked and splintered, and the swell engulfed me.

I felt the sea embracing me, brushing my tears away and smoothing my hair. My skin cracked and fell away, revealing something golden. I left my shame abandoned on that pier, discarded for someone else to discover. The gentle waves kissed my face, and I could sense it's sadness. I knew that the sea was crying with me, crying for me. I didn’t know why.

I smiled as I drifted further and further down, the surface dissolving like bubbles. 

Whoever decided to even grow this abomination of an organism deserves to be euthanized. What an awful plant. I can handle a bad taste, but paired with a mushy but also chewy texture and I start to gag. Literally. When I go over to a certain friend’s house, we like to play a game where one of us closes their eyes and the other makes a mystery mixture of ingredients in the kitchen that they have to taste. One time she gave me a baked eggplant with a pile of salt on top of it. Big mistake. My friend started laughing at the sight of me gagging, but she wasn’t laughing when I threw up all over her sink and kitchen(it wasn’t the first time. Last time I had spat out a bit more than the pickle covered in peanut butter she had given me). 

The sea threw out another rope and took hold of my brain. It was too dark for anyone to see me, and if I was quiet about it they would never notice me get in. It was starting to make sense. Why couldn’t I? Any reasons drifted away. There was absolutely nothing on earth stopping me right now. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be cold. The wind kissed my face. The ropes tightened, but it wasn’t aggressive, more like a hand guiding me where I needed to go. I could sit on the end of the pier and dip my feet in. The water would seep into my shoes and make my trousers stick to my legs. I would just slip off then. My jumper would float up a bit for a moment, and then slightly weigh me down. There would barely be any noise. The water coaxed me further and further till I was standing right on the edge. I could swim away, towards something I didn’t yet know. Nothing after that would matter. 

Would I be complete? Would something click and the emptiness filled? 

But I turned around and walked away. It hurt. I wanted to turn around and stay forever with the sea. But I kept going, step by step, loosening the ropes till they were gone. 

And on the way home, with my head against the glass window of the car, I couldn’t get a thought out of my head. Sirens. I had heard old stories of sailors drawn to their deaths, following their hearts to the water. Why had I wanted to go into the ocean so badly? Where would I be now if I had? Washed up on a beach somewhere? 

Or just gone?

But most of all, as the car crossed the wooden bridge and I watched the sea below, I wondered;

What if?