Corrupted currents pass between us,
an invisible contagion of atmosphere—
not every toxin climbs from fire and industry,
some are exhaled in whispers from wounded souls.
Inhalation is not survival alone,
it is a consecration—
a quiet pact between flesh and the unseen,
a pulse that predates remembrance.
Yet what we draw within remakes us.
Each intake etches its mark,
becoming either stillness
or ruin.
There lived a fragile, radiant being—
delight pouring from him unguarded,
his voice a sudden dawn against shadow.
But in a tainted climate,
light is mistaken for provocation.
A man, drowned in his own inner smog,
lashed out at what he could not bear to feel.
And there, upon the unfeeling earth,
that gentle life faltered—
not solely from terror,
but from the quiet unraveling of breath.
“Summon help,” one might plead,
as if moments could be bargained with,
as if the departing air
could be coaxed back into form.
But the atmosphere had already thickened—
laden with harm,
saturated with indifference.
The small frame quivered,
a last delicate defiance,
then fell into stillness—
as though existence itself
had forgotten the motion of breathing.
So keep watch over what you take in.
Not all suffocation announces itself.
Not all endings arrive gently.
Do not permit the emissions of others—
their fury, their neglect, their inner chaos—
to trespass into the sanctum within your chest.
For existence is drawn in through breath,
and breath is the unseen filament
that fastens you to all that is.