Sometimes, I find myself gasping for air,
tossed about by waves,
struggling to stay afloat.
I am overwhelmed.
All it takes is one final wave to crest
before I am plunged into the depths
of my psyche,
being pulled to where
the deceptively calm cerulean of the surface
gradates into navy.
It feels as though my ankle is tethered
to the ocean floor by a rope
and that rope is getting shorter,
or perhaps it is being pulled.
If that is true, I don't want to know
what is doing that pulling,
trying to drag me down to the darkness.
In that time, my lungs burn for lack of air
and I don't know how to fix it--
I don't know how to escape--
because I have been spun in every direction,
and there are no landmarks in this deep blue.

That's when I remember
the trick I was taught about bubbles
and how they always rise
toward the surface,
so I use my last bits of breath
and release it into the water
and notice the path that it takes.
I follow that path.
I rise with those bubbles.
And then I am at the surface again,
weary but alive.

I look back down at where I was,
see the depths beneath me,
reflect on my experience
and thank the dangerous, deep, dark waters
for the lesson
they taught me.

Because I know
that next time I feel that familiar tug
the next time that going with the flow
threatens to drown me,
I will remember that I know how to escape--
I just need to trust my breath.