I have read what it feels like to drown, and I try not to think of it as my feet edge to the beginning of the sea, to the beginning of a universe that offers free will to the most fanatic of men, connecting me to those I would not know in any other circumstance. I am prudent; I care too much. The sea is cold and unwavering, and I dare not look into its bounds, for it warns against the selfish acts of men, it forgives only after duty, it finishes what it starts. Now, I think of whether the mistakes I have made, the women I have kissed and abandoned, and the illusory restraint that confines my action would justify my descent into the water.

I am not unlike the sea, and as my knees feel the frozen breaths of fish beside me, I call to it, blessing its waves as a priest would bless bread. The night forsakes most, taking the shells of light bitterly to their break, giving me the chance to fault and turn around. I am wet, now. I am cold, now. I am alive, now.

Each step is unstable as the wet sand faults under my soles, the soles of expensive shoes and the souls of the accidental dead. I wish to know them, to know melancholy as if Hades was my home, to replace indifference with the reverence of death, for life has forgotten my eyes and lips. I want to believe in God.

Perhaps the night pushed me to this. I prefer to antagonize over the abstract, for it feels safer. That my lover had broken my heart or that I could not sleep did not seem like reasons important enough to end this existence, and I think of what the Romans had said, that it is better to be a slave on earth than to rule in the underworld. Is it not enough to be a man, to feel my strong body working? I cannot overcome the idea of death, and I crave it each time the dawn approaches. Living is tiring, and now all I dream of is sleep.

The water sits at my breast. Slowly, as with things of importance, I bend my head into the oncoming wave. It is light, and I pretend I can breathe underwater, as our ancestors did so many years past. It must feel welcoming, to belong, and as all the men sat in circles, dying for causes not yet realized, they must have thought themselves brave. But I am not brave, no.

I know sadness. The water is not still, but the waves are not ripe. They break on my body in couplets, and the current pulls me forth, breaking for seconds at a time, then returning to its cadence, rhyme, mission. I was taught to survive these situations. I have no want of that. The sun’s weight is on my brow, pushing, pushing me deeper into my grave. Or maybe it was not the sun, but her words, her dismissals, her departures.

It is almost dark. Though my purpose is death, my body is paralyzed with the fear of sharks, and I hesitate in my steps, because I do not want to die in a violent manner, but in one of nature’s simplest designs (perhaps warm and asleep in bed). My pleas of both death and survival become louder, cupped in the hiccups of the night. I cannot decide whether I want to live or die.

Soon each wave hits my mouth, and I swallow the water when no more can fit. The salt burns, and I taste regret. I see the unattainable repentance before me, and I imagine my family above the waves, smiling as if I had never existed. I feel, but lack power. My back is covered with the bodies of men lost at sea; I lean back, into the waves that have passed, and my hair flows out from me, grasping for the land I left behind. Breathing becomes difficult, I am so cold, and my chest has the weight of the entire ocean on its bow. My parents never warned of the harshness of death, and how it takes all of you before returning you to an origin, the place where your body grew, plunged, stretched. Such conception always comes too late.

My eyes are covered and closed by the water. I pray as Neptune pulls me out to sea. I want to live.

—Megan Berkobien is an LSA senior.