cheers

at first, you will feel like you are drowning. you will forget how to swim butterfly, how to doggy paddle, how to tread water. you will forget how to survive. for weeks, the water will live in the bottom of your lungs, stagnant, pooling until it touches the tip of your throat, then your tonsils, then your tongue. your ducts will store more tears than you thought possible. you will never drink enough water.

once you play with a dead frog long enough, you get used to the smell. you will, too. your heart will feel bloated and your chest will nearly burst every time the sun sets but you will get used to not touching yourself unless you can firmly grip your skin with forceps. wear gloves for extra protection, and get your heart out of the way.

god, the smell. your shoulders will grow stiff and your fingers will grow stuck together and you will wish you had your mother's flies for dinner, anything but the preservatives, you would slurp them off of her lips if you had to, god, please, not the preservatives. you don't want to stay longer than you have to, longer than the garter snake by the oak tree intended.

be careful with the scalpel. you will want to dissect yourself. do not dissect yourself.

when they finally debrief you, tell you they are cutting off your canals, you will float on your stomach. cross your eyes. say okay– and clip the word before it has the chance to dangle, doomed to live life as an amputee, a victim to the apathy everyone has but no one cares enough about to go see the doctor.

open your mouth, let them slash your jaw, stick their latex fingers down your throat until you are choking, and it feels like you are drowning, and you are right back where you started: the mariana trench.

they will ask if you can hear them.

you will blackout from the pressure.

when you resurface, they will tell you your chest is rising. you are breathing. you made it.

eyes barely bobbing above the water, you will choke, gasp, spit out the salty kelp stuck between your teeth, and respond:

this is the taste of air?

you mean to tell me i was alive the whole time?

they will look at you, blink, take your vitals. ask for your birthdate, tell you there’s a great big world out there with your name right on it, you’ve got a whole adventure ahead of you, slap your ass and send you off into the sea with a jar of formaldehyde, saying “drink up, kiddo, even death doesn’t offer hand-outs. you gotta work for it, just like everyone else.”