Suffocate

I started out optimistic, I guess. But when the going began getting tough I didn't and couldn't get tough. So now that maybe leaves me
stranded. Marooned on an island by myself sustained only by what little energy I can make for myself out of a hope kept burning by the turning of these waves and the imagination that perhaps they are getting bigger and higher because a ship is coming by to my rescue, and not because they want to drown me, as well. I'm grasping for seconds and groping for hours, hoping for days and longing for weeks.
Sometimes when I speak I no longer hear a voice outside of myself because it's being pushed down by all the other ones in a crowd.