Salt Water
SALT WATER
written by Aishatu Sali
Boddobodes
What's inside:
• 44 sips
• 13 series
• 13 Fresh Water Notes
From the first taste of something toxic
to the courage to finally drink fresh water.
One complete journey back to yourself.
Before You Drink,
This book is about salt water.
Not the ocean. Not the sea. But the kind of salt water that looks like love and tastes like poison.
The kind you drink when you are thirsty enough to ignore the warnings. When you are desperate enough to convince yourself that this is as good as it gets.
I wrote this book because I spent years drinking salt water and calling it nourishment. I stayed in relationships that drained me.
I loved people who hurt me and I convinced myself that suffering was proof of commitment.
This book is my survival story but it is also yours.
Because if you picked up this book, you recognize something in the title.
Something in the metaphor.
Something in yourself.
Maybe you are drinking salt water right now.
Maybe you just stopped.
Maybe you are still trying to figure out if what you are tasting is salt or if you are just being too sensitive.
But the truth is If it feels like salt water, then it is salt water.
And you deserve fresh water.
This book will not tell you what to do. It will not give you a formula or a timeline or ten steps to anything.
But it will show you what salt water looks like.
How it starts.
How it grows.
How it convinces you that you cannot live without it even as it is killing you.
And it will show you what fresh water looks like.
How to recognize it.
How to trust it. How to finally let yourself drink.
Some of these sips will hurt.
Some will feel too familiar.
Some will make you angry or sad or afraid. But, that is okay.
Feel it all.
Because the only way out of salt water is through the truth.
And the truth is this:
You have been thirsty for too long.
It is time to drink something that actually sustains you.
Welcome to Salt Water.
I am glad you are here.
…..
Why Salt Water Was Written
Some books are written from inspiration.
This one was written from survival.
I wrote this book because I needed it.
Because I was drowning and did not have language for what was happening to me.
Because I thought I was the only one.
Because I thought I was weak for not being able to handle it.
Because I thought leaving meant I had failed.
I wrote this book because I needed someone to tell me:
“This is not love. This is salt water. And you are allowed to stop drinking it.”
But no one told me that. So I had to learn it myself.
And once I learned it, I could not keep it to myself.
I wrote this book because headlines never tell the whole story.
We see the ending and think we understand. But we don’t.
We do not see the years of salt water that led there.
We do not see the slow erosion.
We do not see how it started with something that looked like love.
I wrote this book to tell the story before the headline.
The quiet story. The confusing story.
The story of how you end up drinking poison and calling it nourishment.
Because understanding that story might save someone from becoming one.
I wrote this book because emotional abuse is invisible.
There are no bruises to photograph.
No broken bones to X-ray.
No visible proof to satisfy people’s demand for evidence.
So it gets dismissed as “just a bad relationship” when it is so much more.
I wrote this book to make the invisible visible.
To give language to what cannot be seen.
To validate the pain that does not bleed but still breaks you.
I wrote this book because words matter.
Because the right words at the right time can interrupt a cycle.
Can spark clarity.
Can feel like a hand reaching into the dark.
I wrote this book to be that hand.
To be the voice someone hears at 2 a.m. when sleep won’t come because deep down they know something is wrong — but they cannot name it yet.
Salt Water is not just my story.
It belongs to everyone who has ever confused survival with love.
Everyone who stayed too long.
Everyone who needed permission to leave.
If you have ever questioned your own reality…
If you have ever shrunk yourself to keep peace…
If you have ever wondered, “Is it really that bad?”
This book may answer the question you are afraid to ask.
And if you are not the one drinking salt water, you may love someone who is.
Read it for clarity.
Read it for language.
Read it so that no one you know mistakes poison for love again.
Because sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is recognize the taste of salt and choose fresh water instead.
PS: Please DM me on WhatsApp at +234 809 480 2016 with proof if you encounter any problem with payment or downloading the eBook.