Day 21: For the Suffocating Days

Inhale      one      two      three    four.

Exhale     one      two      three    four     five      six.

Shake the expectations off your shoulders.

Swallow hard.

Name the thing that’s caught in your throat.

Remember: Dark matter has its own pull.

Negative space isn’t empty;

It lives inside bright hard lines like casings.

Absences have shells. They lodge high up

Where nausea and tears begin.

Remember: Fear is polymorphic.

Nightmares expand once they get comfortable.

Panic seems small,

But it shivers and throbs in widening circles;

Its tremors crystallize.

Think: For whose hand are you reaching?

Where are your own hands?

If they are torn and bloody, love them.

If they are worn and wrinkled, admire them.

Feel your very own fingers intertwining.

Think: With which organ are you breathing?

The heart is a motor.

The lungs are sacks to be filled.

It’s OK to feel relieved by those truths.

Life is no less miraculous when you drop the similes.

On these suffocating days, my darling,

Let yourself be nothing more or less

Than one soft human body living.

Inhale      one      two      three    four.

Exhale     one      two      three    four     five      six.