bucket

 think of a bucket of water. 

then think of a cotton ball. when you first put cotton balls in water, they float. 

it is weightless. 

Nothing holds that cotton ball down.

i go from weightless to drowning in the span of seconds–

one moment I'm floating on top of everything, feeling my legs and arms and head and toes all as singular things until–

my head is dowsed in that bucket and I start sinking lower and lower and lower–

the cotton ball is drowning as it soaks up that water.

all of a sudden the water encompasses it; each strand of pure whiteness soaked in wetness until it's resting at the bottom of the bucket.

I find myself at the bottom of the bucket.

no air is coming in, just more and more heavy, unforgiving water filling up my lungs and weighing down every limb that I can't feel anymore. 

I can't escape the bucket. 

the cotton ball is struggling. 

then someone notices the soggy thing at the bottom of the bucket and takes it out to leave it to dry,

and as we dry my limbs start to twitch and my brain starts to panic because now everything is coming back,

all of those things that the water flooded out–

and all of a sudden I am feeling again. 

the cotton ball is starting to revive–

its poofiness and liveliness is slowly coming back.

There is color in my cheeks and warmth in my chest.

and we start to think that the drowning is over,

and that we survived it.

but someone fills that bucket back up and we're floating again–

until we aren't.