I am a boat.

I am a boat. I am sailing. I am small. I am gone, floating away. The sea is my mother, the wind my father, the waves my sisters and brothers. I am a boat. I am sailing. I am small. I am gone. 

My father seems angry. He’s rustling and bustling and hustling, making my brothers rustle and bustle and hustle too. My sisters stay calm. My mother accepts all my father gives to her, calm, angry, whatever he gives she takes. I like to think it’s so he doesn't affect me or my siblings, but nothing could stop my father for he is angry. And I’m thrashed around. Just like my mothers, just like my sisters and brothers, I’m at the mercy of him, now and forever. Forever, forever, forever seems like days and days ago. Now all I can feel is a push down, down, down and away, away, away, my life unfolding like a stupid chess game. 

You don’t know you’re drowning until you’ve hit the floor of the sea. Overwhelming thoughts like these surround me, suppress me, push me down, down, down until I can’t breathe. Until I hit the bottom of the sea.

The bottom of the sea is a nice place to be, unless you’re me. So many friends marked with a cross and a “Here lies Lee”, a name I can barely remember, regardless of how it reflects on me. When I stare into the mirror, all I see is someone I don’t know and don’t want to be. But, reflections don't matter, it’s what on the inside that counts. It’s something I have to say over, and over, and over, until I don't know how many repeats I can live through. 

I don’t think I’m drowning. I am floating on the wide, vast, sea. Set out by the people who own me, not knowing what to do. Not occupying me, surrounding me in their space. I loved them and I thought they loved me too. I thought all their lies were true, that they wouldn’t deceive me like they deceived you but, oh Mother, now you are full of my oil and I am out. I am out, I am out, I am out. Lights run out, dad’s run out, and now I am run out, run dry, run through. Run through probably aren’t the right words to use, but that’s how I feel, feel, fell. 

I think I might be drowning, I can see the surface floating above me. Twinkling blue, piercing my eyes. Shimmers of light fall off the beams, illuminating my descent into the dark, blue, abyss. My sail, once red as can be, seems purple in this deep blue light. Almost like a violet violence, absolutely ripping me apart from the inside out. Soon I will be gone, at the bottom of the sea, my mother and siblings thrashing above me.

I am enveloped in my mother, in some search for some comfort. But all I can feel is the cold nothingness her feelings project toward me, my soul unsatisfied and my body uncomforted. Enveloped in my mother, I am alone, just as alone as I was with my father. Maybe I’m too different, different from my family, from the people that made me, from the people that surround me, from the waves that crash upon me. I don’t know what I expected, I am a boat after all. An ugly, red, sailboat. No wonder why no one would love me. 

I don’t know why I expect people to love me, a ivory white sailboat with fire-engine red sails. Hell, I’m drowning and no one will come to save me. No one will save me, no one will save me, no one will save me, no one will save me, me, me. It’s selfish of me to think, or want, someone to help. I’d look to God, but the sky is empty. I’d cry to my parents, but I need a mother, a father. A mother that doesn’t feel empty. A father that doesn’t crash around. I need a wiser person to cry to. I thought I’d find that in my owners, yet I was left lost again. 

I’m drowning, I’m drowning. I can see the sand through the abyss. I suppose the abyss is just a deep hole and my feelings are just a passing emotion. A wave. Like my sisters and brothers. Maybe I’m like them on the inside. Maybe, in some strange and perverted way, my appearance is a coincidental flaw, not something to be deeply dissected. Not something to be thought about. Maybe it’s just a thing, maybe I’m just a thing. Or, maybe I’m nothing. Nothing, nothing is still a thing. There has to be a thing for there to be nothing. Maybe I’m just not the thing, nothing. Not a thing. I’m simply not a thing.

I sink down. Sinking is the opposite from what I was made to do. Am I still fully crushed by my mother? Am I still hated by my father? I guess it doesn’t matter anymore and it never did. I guess I should’ve just loved with all my might, try to stay afloat. Try to sail. Work with my father, work with my mother. My brothers and sisters supporting me. Maybe I should’ve tried harder, been better. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone with my owners, betraying my family. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

I’d like to think I’m not brushing against the surface of the sea. That there’d be a rescue mission to find me. But I’d also like to think I can be buried here. That some fish would find some sort of solace in me, find a home that I so desperately long for. Coral will grow and my love will show and mean and feel. And my feelings of falling into the abyss would be just a deep hole and not forever long.

I am a boat. I am sinking. I am small. I am gone, sitting at the bottom of my mothers stomach in the sea, waiting for you to find me.