The thoughts of incoming doom pressure me down more than the actual threat.

The scenery unfolds so simply yet harshly.

I jump.

The water engulfs me.

I’m alone.

I feel pain.

I die.

It’s like I can feel the events happening, even on the dry comfort of shore.

My heart knows it’s cue.

My brain tells my body what to do.

It argues.

It argues like an unhappy couple. Bickering back and forth, t...

Standing on the beach of safety, the water almost seems to lash out in irritation, urging me either forward or backward. I step away. The sand squishes below my feet, it’s soft texture comforting me. I breathe in the salty air, and it burns my nose. I filter out the voices and movements of other beach-goers, their laughing and yelling lost in the thick, heavy worry of my mind. Trembling slightly, ...

“I don’t know why I let you talk me into this,” Hanna whined as she looked over the cliffs edge. The height alone made her stomach flip, but it wasn’t the height that had her palms shaking. It was the water.

The monstrous waves beat against the cliff face with a ferocity that paralyzed Hanna, but her friends hadn’t seemed to notice. In fact, out of all the teens, none seemed to have the same rese...

“Adira, come on!” Hawken shouted up to her as the waves crashed against the boat. Moments earlier he had sliced the ropes that held the rowboat to the side of the larger vessel Adira was standing on. He had then jumped into the waves and hauled himself into the small rowboat.

“Is now a bad time to tell you that I’m deathly afraid of the ocean?” Adira called down to her partner. She could see him...

The crash of the waves made my heart stop. It was the sound of my death. Mother had always laughed when I told her that. If only she knew I was telling the truth. I stared into the water, all the shades of blue. It looked like a perfectly happy place. But I knew it better than anyone.

I raised my arms above my head, just like I had learned all those years ago when the water was my only friend. My...

Standing on the rocky cliff above the sea, I looked down to see where I would land. Staring back at me was the ocean, a vast expanse of cold darkness. I’m afraid of water, not drinking water, but swimming pools, lakes and especially the sea.

I’ve been diagnosed with Thalassophobia, the fear of large open bodies of water. The ocean is the epitome of this fear.

Looking at the ocean from so high u...

It is a summer afternoon, and the sun hangs high in the cloudless sky, casting its golden rays over the glistening expanse of the sea. Lyla and Maddison, twin sisters and friends of mine decided to come out here for some cliff diving and asked me to come with them because they wanted me to overcome my fear, I said yes.

I stood hesitantly near the edge of this cliff, my heart pounding against my ...

Mama, do we all die someday?

I've seen it in movies, but words betray,

Is it true that when you leave, you fly away?

Mama, I heard a baby cry,

It brought back memories, that time I was five,

Lying in bed, with you by my side,

That night still lingers, the day you died.

You ran me a bath, kissed my cheek,

The water was cold, and the day was bleak,

Truth is, you’d been dead for weeks,

Rotting in t...

It’s just water, they all shout.

It’s going to be fun, they all laugh.

You’re being silly, they all snarl.

They’re going about their day, getting undressed into costumes and preparing to jump into the depths of the unknown. All of them were careless, running wild across the cliff tops and launch themselves into the pit of darkness that roared beneath.

As I watched the last of them stumble up t...

I look into the depths, collecting myself.

I will be fine.

Fine.

Fine fine fine fine fine.

Who am I kidding?

This is NOT fine

This is the opposite of fine actually

This is the furthest from fine anything could possibly be.

I take a few deep breaths trying to calm my frenetic heart. Ok I can do this. It’s just a little bit of water. It can’t hurt me…

But it can.

And it has.

I can’t d...