Jul 2013
In sleep, the lungs balloon.
Air fills their walls and sacs where it can,
like saltwater waves cresting in inhales
and exhales.
They release and crash
as ribs slide tides of breath
shallow within the core,
where we cannot hear the volumes
of the waves that drift us about our nocturnal coma.
of the waves that drift us about our nocturnal coma.that we never feel how far from the shore
we have been taken, up and down.
Our chests, we have moved them
but elsewhere.
The ribs crack like driftwood
in the choppy current, and float
from the diaphragm of the Atlantic into
our chest cavities.
Air fills their walls and sacs where it can,
like saltwater waves cresting in inhales
and exhales.
They release and crash
as ribs slide tides of breath
shallow within the core,
where we cannot hear the volumes
of the waves that drift us about our nocturnal coma.
of the waves that drift us about our nocturnal coma.that we never feel how far from the shore
we have been taken, up and down.
Our chests, we have moved them
but elsewhere.
The ribs crack like driftwood
in the choppy current, and float
from the diaphragm of the Atlantic into
our chest cavities.
While watching a movie in my best friend’s dorm room last year—three of us squeezed on one extra-long twin-sized bed—I realized I missed out on about ten minutes of the movie because I had zoned out on watching them breathe.
(Charleston, West Virginia)
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