I wonder if Shakespeare ever felt like drowning. Did he empathize with Ophelia? Did he ever feel what it is to drown? Drowning is to be overwhelmed. It involves pressure. Which is so strange. I think about that sometimes. I think about how odd it is to be floating and to be crushed.

Does a scream feel the same as a whimper underwater? Probably not. They may both be an eruptions of little bubbles, but one is defiant and one is defeated. I am in a defeated moment. These musings are a whimper. I don’t have air enough to scream.

I’m sorry. This is so self-pitying I hesitate to write it down. I can already imagine the rolling eyes. But you have felt it, too. I know you have. You have felt flooded and submerged. You have felt that tightening in your chest as you tell your body, “Don’t breathe. Not yet. Don’t breathe.”

I love water. The feeling of water on my skin is an incomparable sensation. It feels like nothing and something at the same time. How wonderful. If I were to float forever in an abyss, I would hope it would be a watery abyss.

But I do not want to drown. This moment, this whimper, it isn’t forever. It is flowing now, but it will ebb. I know that. I will rise. I will surface. I will take a deep breath.