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A Deep BreathA deep breath—I fill my lungs and close the airway. Submerge my face in a pillow and resolve myself to wait until my lungs burn—I await the pain. My senses screaming, my lungs driving me to let them have the oxygen they so desire—I decline. Funny how I chose that which offers peace to the weary, an item that invites comfort to rob myself of that most archaic means of surviving. I find it interesting how calm I feel while denying myself that which I know I cannot live without. Isn’t it odd how we only become aware of the subtle currents of air that tickle our skin, raising chill bumps where it finds us bare when we deny ourselves its luxury? Luxury. That’s an interesting way to phrase it really—Breathing as a luxury. A gift of power, smug in our abuse and neglect we fail to see what we loose when we breathe. Lying here refusing to give myself life—for that’s what air is really, and breathing is living. I laugh. Oh yes, I find it funny. I catch myself readying to breathe again and I still that notion. Shove it down; subdue it until it is nothing but a stinging memory in my chest. It takes a lot of strength to deny yourself to breathe. But somehow that only drives me to test that strength. / I wonder if I will forget how? Could the muscle memory that pilots such a necessary involuntary act be forgotten? No, of course not. But perhaps the feeling of fresh air full of life could be. Could it? Perhaps not. For even as these words find themselves onto this page I find myself remembering what it feels like to expand my lungs, for the blood to cool as it gathers its fill with oxygen as it travels on its wending cyclical way. I laugh again. The burn begins to spread and I feel my muscles atrophy. Yet they tighten and tense as if under assault, screaming at the atrocity wrought upon them. Though still I refuse to breathe. / I roll away from the pillow, open my face to the still air and feel it tickle as it tries to find a weakness. Denying my lungs for so long I begin to feel my skin breathing. Absorbing oxygen as cellular mitosis continues in spite of my flirtatious dance. Maybe I am just dreaming. I feel the fire subside. As if my body accepts its doom. “No breath for you,” I say. “No easy outs.” And resolve continues.
These Tainted Webs We Weave...To all those who are the cause of all their hurt....A Toast. / In this web we people make--those who're the greatest cost to themselves--there is no solace and there is no peace. It is so steadfast--kudos to our weaving--and so fragile--apologies to those we've hurt. We find ourselves stuck, though not in the center of our own design, but along the edges, so near freedom and salvation. It is our curse, to see that the grass is greener, that the sun is brighter, that the rain is sweeter, and the flowers forever in bloom. We know--those of us who have found ourselves in these webs--what will set us free, but our freedom and want are vain and insecure; vain because we wish to be at peace, and insecure because we know that it may never come. / These webs are of rare design and make, and, as such, are stronger than any others. For you see, we have made these webs in haste and without attention, and yet, even as we find ourselves trapped and locked still, every detail, every fiber, and every strand was spared no expense of time and energy. They, these webs, we built and manifested for one single occupancy, none other than the builder them self. And, almost without notice, were at the same time fabricated and planned to fall apart at the simplest break of one tiny strand. Those of us who have built these webs know of what I speak, and they know that that single thing is nothing less than our greatest desire, our deepest hope.