Bath

You went in for comfort. 

Refuge. 

You just needed a moment to clear your head, toss out the thoughts that kept pulling you under.

You got it for a moment as you tossed your clothes, locked the door and started the water. 

You wanted it hot, steaming, blistering, gives you third degree burns hot. 

You sunk in. Exhaling in pain, but you push through and focus on that pain as it wipes everything clean. 

For one moment everything is silent and your mind wanders, to lazy summer days spent by pools, lakes and rivers. 

You would swim down trying to touch the bottom before rushing to the surface for air. 

You even managed to touch the bottom of a lake that one time, although your parents yelled at you terrified that something happened. 

You had to stop playing that game after that. 

Slowly you sink deeper into the water until its up to your eyes, nose just poking out. 

                                                    A final breath 

                                                                            and your under.

Your kicking your feet as quickly as you can, arms at your side as you squint hoping to see the surface, but it's too murky. 

You do a few strokes with your arms hoping you reach, but nothing connects, so you turn rushing to the surface as you feel your lungs starting to burn. Air bubbles flow to the side as you realize your swimming in the wrong direction and quickly change course. You think nothing of it as you swim harder, faster, but it just gets darker and more difficult to breath. 

It starts to feel like your swimming in place, while you're trying to keep yourself from breathing in water. Where's the surface? It shouldn't be this far away? Why can't I see the sky?

When finally you get a glimpse of blue as you redouble your efforts, ignoring the screaming of your empty lungs, the blackening of your vision, you keep swimming.

Your hand breaches the surface and you greedily take in air too quickly, your body starving for it, coughing and laughing because it's okay.

Your okay.

 It's ok.

When you feel something wrap around your ankle and pull you back under, farther then you were before. Where you can no longer see the surface again. Unsure of whether you can swim to the top once more.

Twitch

Their fingers twitch, ache and stumble across the keyboard. Struggling to get out a word of what has to be done. This has to be done. They think, while waking with the early morning sun. As they stumble out of bed, only to sit in an old, covered in dog-hair office chair. Monitors come to life around them and they stumble into the work they have to do. This has to be done. They think as they wake each morning, exhaustion long since settled in their bones. They used to think they couldn't function off of little sleep, now they know all it takes is an extra cup of caffeine or two. 

They take a moment to breathe, rest their eyes from the monitor lights, even with everything as dark as it can possibly be, it's still too bright. So they close them, let their mind wander and their fingers start to itch. They crave for something they cannot yet have, they wish for something that's at the bottom of the to do list. Still they ache and the mind wanders and thinks about everything but the black hole of stress and anxiety at the center of their universe. The only thing keeping it afloat is the countdown. At the same time, each day the number goes down, well the anxiety goes up tenfold.

In moments of weakness, when they can't take it anymore, they delve into the past. A past that never happened, a past where as they are right now they went back and had all the time in the world once again. It's just another dream, a dream that usually causes more pain once faced with the reality at hand. One where they wished they learned to do differently to fix their mistakes, while at the same time running from the mistakes they're making now. 

Still their fingers convulse and grasp at something they could create, a fantasy, a dream that they could look in on. Even if it's only for a little while. A way to let out all the regrets of time not spent, of decisions made safely and logically, of times where the consequences were much smaller than you believed. A place where you can hide away the child in your soul, while the adult chaperones. Not to make it safe, but to make it fun. 

 

Sighing Student

"Out of all of my students, you sigh the most."

After saying this the man pauses, but brushes that thought aside. They're just a stressed college student, it's probably nothing serious. So, they continue with their online lesson, screen sharing and talking over skype. The atmosphere is light with jokes regularly spoken by the student. 'Everything's ok. They wouldn't joke around this much if something was wrong.' The tutor thinks, as they say they're goodbyes. 

"See you next week!" They say, quickly leaving the call before more homework can be assigned to them. The man laughs and not for the first time wonders how old their student really is. He knows they're in college, but they also failed a few times, so they're older than the average third year college student, but by how much? Because sometimes his student acted like a high school-er and other times surprised the tutor with their bouts of seriousness and knowledge. Its strange having only a name and a voice. They could pass each other on the streets and never know. 

'I've got 15 minutes before my next lesson,' he thinks deciding to go to the kitchen to grab a quick dinner before he needs to continue lessons. The tutors day continues and he doesn't wrap up till 8 p.m. By then the phrase has left his mind and another week passes. 

*

**

*

"Hey, hows it going?" he starts with his usual question.

They let out a long sigh in response, "I'm alive. How bout you?"

He chuckles, "Not doing to bad myself. You don't sound good. You okay?"

"I'm okay, just a lot of things on my plate." There's a pause and some shuffling from their end. The tutor waits knowing that their student has a question that they need to think over. "Can I have some advice? That might not have anything to do with our lesson."

"I'll do my best, what's up?" 

It's answered by another sigh and what sounds like finger taping, they eventually build up the courage to ask their question. The tutor smiles slightly to himself, not many of his students ask for his advice, usually it's just help with their homework, but this one does every once in a while. It always makes him wonder what's going on in their life, but he doesn't ask not wanting to take up precious lesson time. Time is something that this student of his doesn't have a lot of.