#trigger warning implied suicide

I was five years old when I almost drowned. I thought myself unstoppable in my pink bathing suit and red floaty tube. I still remember the world going dark as I breached the surface, slipping through the protection of the tube around my waist. I remember my throat burning as I tried to call for someone, but they all went to lunch long ago. Most of all, I remember my bones aching from fatigue and, just for a moment, I thought about giving up as my body quickly forgot what it felt like to breathe—

verb; to take air, oxygen, into the lungs and expel it; inhale and exhale; respire.

We’re 15 years old, 7 years before we vow to never speak each other’s names again. Haris tells me of his mother and the panic attack she had the night before. He never speaks of his family, but he recalls feeling paralyzed, watching her clutch at her chest, gasping for air, falling to the ground. He desperately wants to understand and he knows that I know better than anyone else in his life—the feeling of water slowly dripping into your lungs, an unfixable faucet; the feeling of your blood running cold, solidifying beneath your skin. He knows that I understand what it is like to have your body betray you, to fight against its most basic survival instinct; the one that keeps us alive, the one that reminds us to breathe—

verb; to inject as if by breathing; infuse

I heard their voice for the first time three months ago; it was nothing like what you read about in the novels. The world did not turn on its axis, my depression was not suddenly cured, and my heart didn’t skip a beat. That is not to say that their voice is not quickly becoming my favorite sound. That is not to say that I wouldn’t give anything to hear their laugh or bask in the way my name sounds falling from their lips for as long as they will allow me to. Hearing their voice was nothing like what you read about in the novels, there was no grand epiphany, but that is not to say that hearing their voice, their mere presence, doesn’t remind me what it’s like to love to breathe–

verb— to live; exist.

When you tell people that you want to die, they never really know what to say. They never know how to respond when you tell them about all the times you’ve crossed the road, imagining what it is like to get hit by six cars in succession. Or that every time you go to the train station, you wonder whose day would be inconvenienced if you took that final step at just the right moment. When you tell people you want to die, they always say the same things. Some say ‘fuck.’ Some say ‘please don’t.’ Some say ‘fight.’ Some people give you every reason that you shouldn’t want to die. Some say nothing at all. No one, though, ever says—breathe.

breathe: the reprise by (DS)

i. Nothing ever absolutely has to happen. I didn’t have to be dumb enough to believe that you could ever love me, but I was. You didn’t have to be cruel enough to abandon me when I needed you most, without so much as a goodbye, but you were. Now here I am, standing on the train tracks, tiptoeing along the ledge of the yellow line, counting down the minutes until I hear the train coming. I do not have to jump, but I think about it.

ii. I have stood on these very train tracks countless times before, always skirting on the neon yellow line, the one that reminds me of all the unsightly dangers in this unassuming train station. It reminds me of every moment that has led up to me standing here, my lungs inflating with recycled air as I listen to my fellow train goers. You know, the ones who are not paralyzed by everything that does not have to happen. The smartly dressed businesspeople, parents dragging their children along, teenagers idling in huddles, and the conductors who surely do not get paid nearly enough to deal with us—with me.

iii. I think of the coffee I made this morning, untouched, waiting for me to come home, stewing in the uncertainty. I think of my brother, sitting on his gray couch covered in cat hair, laughing tiredly at the show playing on the tv. I think of him running down the stairs of his apartment because he forgot to hug me goodbye. He did not have to do that, but he did.

iv. I think of every wrong turn, every mistake, that has led me to this moment, thinking about whose day would be inconvenienced if I took the chance, took that last step. What would they tell their boss when they ask why they are late? Would they call out? Would I now be a permanent part of their life, always in the back of their mind; always thinking about what didn’t have to happen, what could have been. What if I didn’t take that step? What if I missed my stop that morning and wasn’t on the train tracks the exact moment they were?

v. This moment didn’t have to happen, I was never guaranteed any of it, but here I am, imagining a world in which I make something that never has to absolutely happen, happen.

contemplating in five parts by (DS)