I came into this world
purple,
a bruise before I’d even been touched.
my mother,
terrified,
watched me fight for breath
that didn’t want me.
suffocating—
from the first second I was alive.

couldn’t crawl,
couldn’t walk—
my body slow to learn
how to move forward.
but eventually, I did.

kindergarten was quiet.
me, the kid who didn’t talk.
preschool, I found friends,
found a voice,
found something that felt like living.

then 5th grade came.
cigarettes.
*****.
pills.
older kids teaching me
how to burn my insides
so i wouldn’t feel my skin.

my best friend died.
two weeks later,
I drowned with someone else.
or almost.
he didn’t make it back.
I did.

then the years blurred:
drugs.
assault.
grief.
relapse.
trying to claw my way back to clean.
trying to feel like myself again,
if I even knew who that was.

sometimes,
I think back to that purple baby,
struggling for breath,
and wonder
if maybe I wasn’t supposed
to make it past that first minute.
maybe life has been one long suffocation.

or maybe
I’m still in that hospital room,
fighting for air,
waiting for someone to say:
“you can breathe now.”