Drowning

There's somebody else living in my body. It feels like they're drowning… Pain overcomes me as my brain begins to scream. Next my throat closes up as I gasp for breath, but fire, not air fills my lungs. I fold forward as my stomach cramps up, the way you feel when you haven't gone to the bathroom in a week. My muscles give out and I collapse to the floor. I need to breathe I need to fight this pain, but I'm not sure who truly owns this vessel, the alien presence who feels right at home, or the natural being that never felt like they belonged.

I feel it taking over, consuming me from the inside out. The sensation is terrifying, yet I don't fear it. Rather I enjoy the sensation, like every nerve in my body is awake and jolting with pleasure. I feel alive. For the first time in my life, I feel like the person I have always wanted to be, like the person my body would never quite let me be. 

I wonder if this is how a caterpillar feels, as it weaves the cocoon around its body on its journey to become a butterfly. I've always wondered if the caterpillar knows when it's born and growing through its first life cycle. Do they know that this is not the form they are meant to stay in, that they are destined to become something so different, so beautiful? Or do they just begin their metamorphosis in confusion, unsure of what is happening.