You’re drifting in a half-conscious state,
like floating just feet underwater,
letting the currents pull you further under,
but still having a grasp on the world above.
You can still hear the voices from the surface,
barely muffled by the sea,
Still having the ability to emerge,
but not quite wanting to.

You sink further down,
and your sense of reality changes.
Now, talking to a fish is normal.
You don’t question it,
you just go with the flow.
Now, you don’t care when you sprout gills,
you just swim further down.

There’s no way to stop it now.
No way to swim back up.
Now, you have no control over what happens.
You can swim in another direction at first,
but after a few minutes,
the tide always steers you back onto its own course.

You like it.
You like living in this different world.
You like visiting this different reality.
Of course,
at the time,
you don’t know it’s different.
All you know
is that you want to go deeper.

But then,
out of nowhere,
you start to rise.
It may be subtle at first,
so you don’t notice it.
But soon, you start to realize
that you’re hearing the voices from the surface again,
and that the water between you and the real world is thinning.
And fast.

You dive.
Again,
and again,
and again,
but every time you are thrust back up.
Every time you are pushed up higher,
and no matter how hard you swim,
you break the surface.
And all you can think about…

Is submerging again.