Mental illnesses are waves
Some big, some small
They show warning signs
They hit
One after the other
And then another
Knocking you off your feet
Dragging you out to sea
You’ll swim towards shore
You come so close
Just to be pulled back
Sometimes farther than before
The pushing and pulling
Disorienting you
To where it’s all too much
The stinging strong smell of the salt overtaking the air
Infiltrating your lungs making it hard to breathe
The slimy water clinging to your skin
Like seaweed trapping you
The crashing and thrashing of the waves
Breaking against your skin
The bitterness overtaking your tongue
As you gag unable to catch your breath
The water weighing you down
Bringing you to the bottom
You feel like you’re drowning
being overtaken by it all
With no one to save you
No matter how loud you scream
Unable to swim
Sinking until you can’t breathe
Watching the waves crash down on you
Fighting to live
You push yourself from the sand
All the way to the breaking waves
Seeing the sun rise on the horizon
Beginning a new day
You may never make it all the way
But enough to survive
People may never see
How far or how hard you swam
They may never understand
How it felt to drown
And to keep swimming after
Through the true deep and dark sea
Now I look back
With my friends and they
See how hard I swam
How much I struggled
And they support me even when its hard
I know I can breathe
Even when I smell the salty sea
Even with the slimy feeling
That never seems to leave
Even when I feel the waves strike my skin
Even with the overpowering taste
Always on the back of my tongue
I know I can live
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