Cleanse

Hopeless.

Thats what it was. She finally placed her finger on it. Today was hopeless.

And she felt helpless.

It was one of those days where she wished she was in her car, driving down some desolate highway, lost among the tumbleweeds and swirling clouds of sand, the perfect abandoned spot where she could roll up all the windows and just scream. Let it all out. The emotion. The pain. The disappointment.

That'd be too easy. If it was, that's what she would do every time she felt this way. Too convenient.

No. Today was different. She needed to be cleansed. The world needed to stop. Slow down. For as exasperated as it had made her, it was time for it to take a breath of its own. She left it all on her bed. Her wallet, her phone, ID, chap stick - anything that was in her pockets. She needed separation. She didn't need to be found.

So, she walked out to her car, mindless of the rain that was blanketing the ground. It was that summer rain that fell hard, fast, with no regard to what was below. The drops were fat. Heavy with weeks of perspiration that had been waiting to escape their gaseous prison in the sky. It was cold against her skin, pressing her shirt against her body - cold enough to instantly take her breath away, but refreshing to the point that the foundation of her woes began to crumble.

As she drove down the road to the coast, the rain pelted her windshield, obscuring the asphalt ahead of her. She wasn't concerned - from as early on as she could remember, the road beneath her tires had always meant one thing. Salvation. The beach. She had driven that road thousands of times - early in the morning, late nights, through storms, and cascading tears pouring from raw eyes. Nothing had stopped her before and she wasn't about to let the rain break her routine.

When she dove in, the sky rumbled. The clouds above her clapped, welcoming her to the sea - the lack of lightning let her know she was welcome. There was nothing to fear. It was there to embrace her, wrap its churning, crashing arms around her.

As she continued under the water, she could feel everything melting away. Being pulled off her skin, washed by the salt of the ocean - left to drift, to be picked at by the schools of fish below her. Discarded. Forgotten about. Devoured.

It wasn't until she crested the surface that she let everything go. The world had finally stopped.

And she could finally breath.