i'm a mess and i'm still untangling the strings
breaking down walls
breathing
being
building.
i've shed layers of dead skin,
repaired the broken
but never healing all at once...
never coming together the way i should
never falling apart when i'm ready to
never breaking at the right angles
that make it clean enough
to pick up after myself.

rusted vases light the hallway
as the sun breaks over the trees
pictures float from the cracked walls
tattered floors from the living we’ve done

the way you breathe
how it sounds like you're always taking your first
and last breath

it's like you're gasping for air
but sighing
because you know it could all
stop
in an instant and you're okay with that

the way you breathe
fills my lungs
because i love breathing you in
feeling you
knowing you
you

I open this blank Word document.
Its white expanse a challenge I am not sure I want to take.
But now I’ve got two lines - going on three
will this be the seed of a small green sprout of a tree?

This page is a bright sky
beckoning me to take a breath
at first shallow barely containing enough oxygen
to sustain sitting up.

But writing is like breathing to me
I do it most of the time without much effort
inspiring and expiring
here in this white desert
one line at a time
minute by minute, day after day
trying to find something worthwhile to say
worthy of my time as I sit here growing older
or your time to pause here in this blooming desert
never quite sure if it or I am worthy of the fuss.
But isn’t writing the thing that sustains us
no matter its poetic patterns or rhythms or rhymes?
Writing is breathing to me and do it I must.  Lots of times.

I've been dreaming a lot lately,
I've been getting enough sleep and more,
I've been writing things that rhyme,
I've been cutting off toxic people,
I've been breathing fresh air
and oh my god it feels so
good to be so empty.