SLIGHT TW: DR0WNING I almost dr0wned a year ago. My lungs tasted chlorine and fear. I clawed toward the surface like the world owed me one more breath. And when I got it- I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I ate a popsicle. The red kind. The kind that melts too fast if you don’t hold it right and tastes like liquid sugar. And she laughed. Not the soft kind that invites you in— The kind that says: “That’s weird.” “That’s stupid.” “That’s you?” She always did that. Mocked my laugh until I buried it. Said it sounded like a squeaky toy or a cough or something not quite human. So I stopped laughing. Because when your joy becomes someone else's joke, you learn how to swallow it before it escapes.
