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Tatiana Nov 2014
I'm suffocating.
But I don't need your help,
I can handle my throat closing,
no don't call 911,
there's no reason to.

I'm choking.
But I don't need your help,
I can handle the mucus that blocks my throat,
I can spit it up just fine,
so just keep on walking.

I'm coughing.
But I don't need your help,
I can handle myself doubled over in pain,
with my chest hurting as I try to sit up straight,
so just ignore me hacking up a lung.

I'm breathing.
But I don't need your help,
I can handle hyperventilation without my inhaler,
I don't have to breathe properly to live,
so thanks for just leaving me on the floor.

I'm dying.
But I don't need your help,
it's not like I have no energy to get my inhaler,
you can totally just run out of the room panicking,
it's not like i'm scared too or anything.

I'm angry.
And for some reason,
you can't figure out why.
So leave me alone.
I'm fine now.
I can handle myself.
I don't need your help.
I'm changing the caption 4 years later because it was very angry and I don't carry that same level of anger anymore towards that person.
Except in reference to asthma
Then I'm quite angry
Asthma *****
Charlie Chirico Sep 2012
I guess it was when I found the eviction notice on the front door, or when I was going on three months being unemployed, or maybe even the point where I questioned myself as a writer, is when I sat down and started writing out facts. I was a writer in love with fiction, and besides my non-fiction work that allowed me enough money to eat (mostly to drink, unless there were food specials at the bar) I was writing short stories. I never thought about writing about my life, because in my mind I was still young. I was wet behind the ears; a little **** that thought he knew everything. I know nothing.

Dr. Seidman asked me if I wanted to play a board game.
I didn’t respond, in fact I looked as if I was ignoring him purposefully, but I wasn’t. He sat patiently and waited for me to respond. The truth was that I was apprehensive. This was the first time I had been in front of a therapist, and I didn’t know what to say, let alone how to act. I found it odd that the first thing he asked me was if I wanted to play a game. I was ****** as well. Before I got in the car with my mother I sat upstairs in my bedroom, took out my “inhaler” and packed the bowl. (During this time in my adolescence I was fascinated with marijuana and also with the devices used to smoke it with. I didn’t like rolling joints, and blunts had not caught on at that time. Instead, I would make my own bowls. My inhaler became one of my favorites; it was easy to conceal). I got ******, headed downstairs, grabbed a water, lit a cigarette (my parents were adjusting to the fact their fourteen year old was a smoker), waited outside of my mom’s station wagon, finished my cigarette, flicked it at the end of the driveway, and got in the car. The car ride to Dr Seidman’s office was unbearable. Neither of us spoke, the radio was turned down to a low volume, playing music form the 70’s and 80’s; Elton John’s Someone Saved My Life Tonight was playing. It was ironic to say the least. By the time the song ended we were in the general vicinity of his office. My mother was gripping the steering wheel, her knuckles becoming white, her face becoming red. It was at this point that I realized she was just as nervous as I was.

“**** her,” I thought. She was the reason I was going to see this man. I didn’t ask to come here and she had the audacity to be nervous. She was being selfish. We could have turned the station wagon around and went back home. We could have taken care of any of our problems at home. We didn’t need to consult a “professional” and talk about our “feelings.” This was the point that I felt my life had become the stereotypical suburban life: a life that you would see on television shows; one that consisted of doctors, prescription drugs, confused youth, mid-life crisis, and of course the nervous breakdowns.

We are in front of the doctor’s office. The area surrounding us looks like an industrial park. I don’t know what to think of this, but I in any sense an exterior cannot speak for an interior.

My mother and I are still in the station wagon, seat belts still buckled, the radio still down low, when she turns to me. She looks at me, only the way a mother can, and smiles. I can only bring myself to return her smile with a smirk. I have always been known for my apathetic smirk. I’m waiting for her to speak. I know she is trying to think of the right words, but like me, we have a habit of saying the wrong thing. Our words are always misplaced even though we might have the best intentions.

“Don’t ******* him,” she said

“Okay,” I said in return.

There must be a catalogue book that caters to therapists.

Dr. Seidman’s office looked very generic, like I had fallen into a bad movie, or like the only furniture allowed in the office had to be leather. That is the one smell I will always remember from his office. Even now when I smell leather I think of his office.

On his desk was a calendar, assorted writing utensils (although he had a name placard with a golden pen inserted in the center), and a desk lamp with the customary green glass shade. The wall to the right of him, and next to the office door, was lined with assorted books; filling up the bookcases that took up the full space of the wall. I was sitting on a leather couch that faced the office door. He was sitting in his leather armchair in front of his desk. He looked at me; I looked at the elaborate stitch work of the carpet. The office was calmly lit and relaxing, even though I still looked tense. I didn’t want him to look me in the eye. They were dry and red and I was high.

“Would you like to play a game?” He asked me.

I continued to stare at the carpet. He kept silent while waiting for my answer. I was thankful for that.

When I was tired of the carpet I glanced up and over to where he was sitting to find him looking at a marble chess set. I was expecting his eyes to be on me. They weren’t.

“What kind of game?”

“What do you like? I have board games, we can play cards, or checkers, or chess. Why don’t you tell me what game you’re good at? I’ve played them all countless times, but I’m always looking for a good challenge.” He said with a subtle level of smugness. He was trying to entice me, to challenge me, and it was working.

I spotted the checker board. “Checkers. I’m good at checkers.”

“Then checkers it is,” he said brightly. He stood and grabbed the antique looking checker board and grabbed a table to put in between us. He placed the board on the table and moved his seat closer. We were now face to face and ready to start our first of many strategic games.

Our first meeting was spent in front of a checker board in silence. Very seldom did we exchange words. After three games of checkers (which he won), we shook hands and he told me our session was over for the night. He walked me to his office door, said hello to my mother with a formal introduction, and told us both that he was looking forward to seeing us both the next week. My mother asked me to wait in the car while she asked the doctor a question. I didn’t argue. I walked to her car and unlocked it. I sat and for once in a long time felt at ease.

I went into Dr. Seidman’s office with a pre-conceived notion of talking, or not talking, about my feelings and what caused them. Instead we played checkers. We watched each other’s moves on the checker board. He had a way of making a vulnerable situation bearable. He put my anxiety at ease. But while I sat alone in my mother’s station wagon I couldn’t stop thinking of one thing he said before I walked outside. He said he was looking forward to seeing both of us the next week. I was curious by what he meant when he said “both of us.”
Lakshita May 2020
Me and the inhaler,
Go hand in hand.

Neither I nor him,
Can exist without another.

Am I suffering from the insomnia?
Or is it just the absence of him?

Wandering whole night,
Just one thought in mind,
"Only if I had him by my side."
Life without an inhaler is tough.
Tatiana Oct 2013
I was running,
and running,
and running,
so hard,
so fast for hours,
and yet I didn't know what I was running from.
Then there was this sensation
of my breath being taken from me.
I was winded,
but not just winded.
I felt all the oxygen stuck inside me
turning into carbon dioxide.
I couldn't exhale,
my throat was closing,
I couldn't breathe.
How much longer do I have.
My finger tips are turning blue.
I need my inhaler.
I need it.
Where is it?
Where is it?
Is this how I go?
Is this how my life ends?
Cut short,
by my own body,
as my asthma takes control.
Calm down.
Calm down.
Relax.
Now think.
Breathe slower,
don't wheeze.
In through the nose,
out through the mouth.
I feel my lungs fighting,
and I know they're losing the battle,
and then my inhaler is in sight.
I take it,
and I use it,
but all I hear,
is empty puffs.
The blood now pounds in my ears.
I'm dying.
And I slowly start to fall.
I'm dying.
I feel my body go limp.
I'm dying.
And my mind hits a wall.
I'm dying.
And then I wake up,
breathing heavily in my bed,
grasping for my inhaler.
I use it,
and it works.
I didn't actually need it,
I was fine.
But in my dream I was attacked,
by my own body.
I thought I would actually have to say,
Good bye.
Lilly Tereza Nov 2012
Worthless, stupid, ugly too.
Tongue-tied, but that’s only around you.
My dreams are horrors that I earn,
For them to be real ill always yearn.

My death, sweet poison, saves my life,
By ending it by gun or knife.
Monsters, demons, tear my flesh,
Or I get stuck in barbwire mesh.

Whatever the torture I take it as dished.
Never sweet dreams, as I so often wished.
But why should I have them? I'm crooked and mean.
Or well, that’s what I think. Could be low self-esteem.

I hate that I love you, I hate that I care.
I hate that when you’re upset; I wish I were there.
I just really hate myself for not hating you.
And for loving you in the first place, I hate that one too.

Your name, once golden, now a twisted black vine.
In her name I find envy, I wish you were mine.
You were and you will be, ill see that its so.
And if it doesn’t work out... you know where ill go.

It's a cop-out; I'm chicken, too scared to go on.
I hope it's you who finds me, dead in your lawn.
Razor in hand, I wish I could do it.
Iv tried once before, but that time I blew it.

But this time I can, and I know that I will.
If not by blade, slip off my windowsill.
Or drown in my pool, or forget my inhaler.
Though I know it won’t matter. This girl, you wont save her.

You loved her, you killed her, and you’ve broken her heart.
She has nothing-good left, besides poems and art.
She’s lost, and she’s lonely, and I know she’s scared too.
And the only thing that could help just won’t. And that’s you.
Everyday you ask why I love you
You say
"Why do you you love me when I put you through Hell.
When I push you into your shell,
And I never give you a straight answer.
You say " Why do you love me when I can't love you back,
And when I have all these mood swings."
Well this is what I say.
I love you because you are like my Asthma.
I didn't chose to have you here with me all the time, but you are.
You are here to make my life harder,
But you also make me stronger.
When the voggy winds blow
And it gets hard to breathe
It is you falling.
Yet I pick that Inhaler of mine up
And I take two deep breaths,
and I lift you back up.
As my breaths become clearer.
I know that I will never be able to breathe as well as others.
Just as I know I will never fall out of love for you.
You are the chronic lung disease that forces me to try harder.
The person that makes me try my hardest when I'm singing up on that stage.
You motivate me.
It is you that is always on my mind
When I have to try hard to take breathes instead of just breathing.
When I am running and my lungs start to choke me, it is the pain I feel every time I see you with him instead of me.
Because Love
You are my lung disease.
You are the funny noise my breath makes when I dance,
Because the Oxygen doesn't want to go in.
And when you touch me I feel the buzzing sensation that I get when taking my albuterol.
The warmth of my Nebulizer as it vaporizes the medicine for me to breathe.
Every kiss you plant on my head, fills me with the dizziness that I get from my medication
When I try to stand up, I end up falling just as hard as I have for you.
You are the relief I feel when I take my
Meds on a bad day, you make me feel normal again.
That's why I love you.
That is why I don't care if you're with him instead of me.
Because you will always be with me.
Just like my lung disease.
I wanted to try comparing love to something that I know well. I do have Asthma and I thought this would be something I could try to write.
Noah Jun 2015
curled in bed
eyes pinched tight
whole body trembling,
sleep escaped hours ago
this is how it is trying to talk to you.

like pulling teeth with pliers
clenched in a small boy's fist
a wry grin on his determined face,
knotted eyebrows will ache for days

like being pulled by a speedboat
tossing and turning in the wake
skin on my palms already gone
taking a breath, giving up, letting go,
crashing hard onto cold water's surface

like my chest giving out
every breath catching on its way in
hands digging through a too messy bag
inhaler nowhere in sight, help nowhere in sight,
breathing is too hard to handle right now

like a beach beyond the caves
crawling through at low tide,
sand gritty under fingernails, sun stinging on flushed cheeks
lounging on sharp boulders that dig between shoulder blades,
then rushing back home to escape being trapped for the night
toes tickled with goodbye kisses from the dark, growing waves

through missing teeth and breath,
under wrinkled sheets, and sand and water,
I can't hear anything.
I never could.
Anais Vionet May 2023
last winter break*

I woke up abruptly, my chest gripped and tight. My face felt hot but my arms stung as if frostbitten. I gasped for air that wouldn’t come, like I had a plastic bag over my head.

If I’d had a bad dream, in waking, it had become a collection of vague, menacing shadows, not memories.

I hadn’t had a panic attack in ages, but you never forget the feeling. I reached dizzily for my backpack, beside the bed, which contained an albuterol inhaler. I managed, between gasps, and a puff, to turn on a small bedside light.

It was an indecent hour but between jerky breaths, and a second puff, I performed the series of flicks and touches that initiated a FaceTime call. My brother Brice is in med-school at Johns Hopkins University. He studies a thousand hours a week, I doubt he actually sleeps at all.

Brice answered on the second ring, his gnarled, blonde, wheatfield of hair was unmistakable, even in the dim street light. One glance at me was all he needed. “Breathe,” he said, “just breathe,” his deep, warm voice was as reassuring now as it had been when I was a child.

He made a dismissive motion to whomever he was with, indicating he was leaving and they should go on. “Ok,” a guy said, “Sure.” A  girl's voice said, “tomorrow,” but those voices faded as they were left behind.

“Did you use your inhaler?” He asked, when I nodded yes, he began our old routine, “Alright,” he said, “name things you can see.”
“My.. phone,” I said, haltingly. A moment later I added, “my iPad,” I gasped, “my purse.”
“Oh, your favorite things,” he whispered and when I honked a coughing laugh he said, “sorry.”

After some brisk walking, on his end, I heard the distinct beep of an access-point card-reader.

“The sky,” I added. The sky looked dark, jam-like and starless from Lisa’s 50th floor windows but there was a blurry line of blinking lights - jets queued for landing at Newark Liberty, or Teterboro airports. Life was going to go on, it seemed, even if I couldn’t breathe.

“Uh huh,” he said, in affirmation. His camera went dark and I could tell he was climbing stairs.
My body wanted a full breath, or three and was in a full water-boarding like panic.

I continued with my herky-jerky naming, “my suitcase, a ceiling fan.” He was in his room now.

“Good,” he murmured. “Now focus on 4 things you can touch.” I slowly and purposefully touched my backpack, water bottle, phone and bedside table as Brice quietly watched and waited. I’d stopped hyperventilating and I could feel my eyes relaxing and the room coming into focus (a symptom of anxiety is tunnel vision).

Brice knows me, maybe better than anyone. We finish each other’s sentences, we’re steeped in intimacy and knowing. We watched each other silently for a minute or two as my breathing became normal. His stupid, brotherly face was reassuring. He seemed in no rush, and finally asked, “What brought this on?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, hesitantly, but I had my suspicions. I was on vacation, having a terrific  time with Lisa and her family, and I’d made the honor roll, so my anxiety wasn’t school related.

“Mom left me a Christmas message,” I began, “and there was an explosion in the background, I think. I played it over and over,” I said, frustratedly, “was it thunder - or something else? I played it for Lisa - over and over. She said she thought it was thunder, but Lisa’s not a good liar.”

Feelings are never simple, they're multilayered, strip some off the top and they’re others underneath. If my parents' (Doctors without Borders) Ukraine war work was the stressor, there was little we could do about it.

Brice reminded me that the background noise was equivocal - it could have been thunder - and since this panic was an isolated event, we decided to keep it to ourselves.

As the call wrapped up, he made me promise to stop playing that message and avoid war news. We agreed to stay in closer touch (knowing that, with our schedules, it probably wasn’t going to happen.)
Still, I like knowing he’s out there - like a rescue inhaler - just a few button clicks away.
Tatiana Nov 2014
To an asthmatic like me,
who feels pain in her chest,
has shortness of breath,
and can't stop wheezing,
when her asthma is triggered.
To puff her inhaler,
begging for the medication to work.
Only to hear two empty puffs.
And just like me,
the inhaler is ******* wind too.
If I am ever gone for a long time, or I visit infrequently, it's safe to assume that my asthma is acting up and that I don't have the energy to do anything else.
Terry Collett Jul 2012
People are too concerned
with self, said Father Higgs.
His aged face as if hewn from
Rock, sat before you on broad

shoulders, the lips labouring
with the words.  Too much
worried how self will feel,
how self will benefit. He

hunched forward, his large
eyes moving over you like
tired slugs. The symbol of
the cross, he said with a

movement of his head, is to
cut through the I, the sign
of the self. You noticed one
high brow, grey, larger than

the other, hair in nose like
insects in hiding. He breathed
out deeply. Self denial is
the essence of the message

of Christ, he said, a left
inclination of his head, his
teeth (not his own) large
and discoloured. You wanted

to ask questions, but he raised
a hand. The word I is stated
too often in conversations,
he said, or self too much

brought in as myself or herself
or himself or such as may be
used in talk. You understood
this was his way of lecturing.

His black monastic habit was
stained about the neck by food
or dribble or dried up phlegm.
We ought to be concerned with

others, he stated, wheezing, face
reddening, eyes enlarging. Where
is my inhaler? he wheezed, I really
must be off, this smoker’s cough,

my poor old lungs, must get myself
a stronger inhaler and he was off,
out of the common room he had
caught you in some hour back.

All you saw was his hand and inhaler
and departing monastic habit of black.
onlylovepoetry Jul 2017
she returns from her classes,
ballet, yoga, core something and Zumba for flavoring,
her hair, an upward, toe pointing cannon of mop mess,
her face glowing flushed,
one look and I know she is both,
morphing high,
wipeout exhausted

a little ritual she performs somewhere between
"it was great and she (the instructor) killed us,"
auto sub conscious,
she looks herself over,
twisting elegantly like the
Argentine tango dancer she is,
in the mirrored closet doors

raising both arms to see (show off)
the sums of her endeavors,
the exoskeletal musculature
she has earned,
a life long effort,
like a prize fighter as he
macho enters the ring,
an alpha male gesture
if ever there was one,
made over to say,
hey boy, look at me!

and the boy looks her over,
always thinking, but never revealing,
that it is her muscles of mindfulness and mercy,
that take his breath away, the ones that are worked out daily,
the ones that surround and work the heart beating,
the lung inhaler of humans in need,
exhaling the richest
oxygen for others to breathe

and the boy does his service,
providing a "wow" or "very impressive,"
only you and he know his real thinking,
and his muscle memories secret,
you to keep, just between us,
and his secret identity, only love poetry...


8:52pm 7/20/17
Madelin Nov 2012
The oldest one has set the bar -
Brown eyes, brown hair, natural tan,
Teeth that look just the way teeth should with no aid from metal or NASA-patented plastics.
Kappa Alpha Theta, college homecoming queen,
Following in the footsteps of our parents,
To someday hand out bottles of pills with her God-given smile and white coat to match.
I know she's not perfect, but I like to pretend.

Then there's me.

Then the next youngest,
Long brown hair, massive brown eyes, pale skin with the occasional freckle.
Her awkward phase - back brace, teeth brace, allergies, inhaler, tall and gangly -
paid off in the best way.
She wears her high heels to high school and looks straight off the runway.
She wears her pointe shoes and unfolds like a plant growing in fast-motion.
She sits at the table and draws and eats nothing but carbs and still looks made of sticks.
She wants to be a cartoonist, people tell her to be a model, a ballerina,
Our mother insists she's far too brilliant.

Then the baby.
Thin blonde hair, blue-grey eyes with a ring on the outside, grey skin when she's tired.
As Dad says: the printer ran out of ink.
She's beautiful like the rest, of course, but
she's not finished yet, still learning that her peers are generally wrong.
She frets and worries, but she listens to the music I tell her to,
and her expensive pockets have less and less rhinestones.
I tell her not to hug me so much when I come home,
But it's fine. I'm proud of her.
Someday she'll stop screaming at our mother and realize what she has to look forward to.
Jessica M Apr 2013
I have these dreams that haunt me when I wake
and I'm not sure
if I believe in god but
I don't think I'm strong enough
to believe in nothing
  and survive it

I guess I should be
grateful that the pollen
doesn't make my throat itch
   like it does Naomi's
and it doesn't make my eyes itch
   like it does Naomi's
        but it does make me itch
to get out of this godforsaken place
            once-and-for-all

In my dreams I walk through
fields with needles where the grass
should be but when I wake the
crickets, birds, gossipy girls
whisper when I pass
and its so hard to stop listening
  (the streets swell yellow with the ***** of spring)
Baylee Sep 2015
Walking around
Miniature pharmacy,
Too many pills to count,
No one understands,
No one can relate,
To the type of life,
The type of hate
She has for herself.

This one every 12 hours,
That one every eight,
Six puffs of an inhaler,
It's her body that she hates.
Walking down the road,
Her bag rattles from all the drugs,
She pops some more here and there,
Then it's nyquil that she chugs.

Why isn't she normal?
Why does she have to do this?
No one her age is worried
About missing their next dose,
But if she misses
A single medication,
She might as well
Admit herself into a hospital
Coma-tose.
Pauline Morris Mar 2016
Drowning
On dry land
Chest heaving
Lungs burning
Fresh air
All around
Lungs won't accept
Panic ensues
Inhaler sought
Sweet air returns
Death evaded
Asthma *****
Morissa Schwartz Jul 2014
1

I sit in the back of Dad’s car, bopping my head to The Beatles’ Revolution and hum quietly while reading over my notes for today’s math test.

2

Lunch with Val, Eugene, Michelle, Kayla, Chris, and Nick, talking about our favorite movie, Forrest Gump, until Val interrupts with how nervous she is about applying to high school.  We finish lunch in silence.

3

Let f(x) = -2X2 + 4X + 6…That is the question that has plagued me all day.  On my math test, I made the answer positive instead of negative, the minor mistake that will cost me my A.

4

On this beautiful, unseasonably warm afternoon, I am glad to be outside reading my favorite Matheson stories on the wooden cutout in the giant oak by the dining room window, but worries that I may not be accepted to The Academy interrupt my leisure.

5

For Christmas, my friends and I exchange gifts.  Val gives me a stuffed flamingo. I put right it right next to the unicorn on the lace covered brown bench that oversees my room.

6

We have received your application for admission testing to The Academy for Allied Health and Biomedical Sciences. Your test will be on January 28, 2008.

7

In gym class, Val holds her hand as if she is in pain, but she refuses to show it to anyone, not even me, her best friend.

8

Val has a circular scar on her hand that looks like a burn mark.  She insists that she is just clumsy and she fell.

9

This kid next to me at The Academy admission testing is breathing so loudly I can’t concentrate.

10



I glide my paintbrush through the orange paint and onto the canvas.  I don’t know what I’m painting, but I know I need to paint.

11

Math class is miserable.  Not only did I get an 86 on the test that I thought I aced, but Val started crying hysterically, until Ms. Endolf sent her to the school counselor.

12

Michelle and Kayla are mad at Val for acting so strangely.  They refuse to speak to our friend.  I refuse to join their charade.  I know she’s acting strangely for a reason.

13

I come home to find my mother crying…happy tears.  She tells me that I passed my admission test with a proud ear-to-ear grin on her face. The next step in the admission process is an interview with The Academy on March 1.

14

I bead a few bracelets before going to sleep.  I feel guilty, like I should be studying or preparing for my interview, but I just don’t want to.

15

Val pulls me into the coat cubby during homeroom, the dark circles under her eyes barely visible from the faint light in the  dimly lit room.  She tells me how her father has abused her and her sisters this past year and swears me to secrecy

16

How can I help my best friend and her sisters? Can I help my best friend and her sisters?  Can I help my best friend?

17

I go to the veteran’s home where I’d been volunteering for a while and see my favorite veteran, Ray.  He tells me not to get old.

18

“Why do you want to go to The Academy?”  Ms. Ferris, my Academy interviewer, asks.  I stare at her blankly for a moment before responding.

19

When Val comes to school with more bruises, I break my promise and tell my parents.

20

I slowly open my report card to reveal a B in math…my first B ever.  I take a puff of my inhaler.

21

The old home phone rings; I assume it will be the Academy with an admission decision. “Help me, Morissa!”  Val screams into the phone.  I gesture to my mother who grabs the car keys, as we race to the door.

22

Spring break.  My family and I go to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania to celebrate my being one of forty students admitted to The Academy.

23

DYFS goes to Val’s house after her older sister tries to commit suicide by overdosing on pain pills.

24

Lunch is so quiet with Eugene, Michelle, Kayla, Chris, and Nick.

25

I got an 84 on my math test today.  I smile.

26

Val returns to school but sits at a different lunch table.  She has no more bruises, but her eyes are still red.

27

My gown flows as I march down the church aisle to receive my certificate of completion from St. John Vianney.

28

I stare at the screen of the my new HP computer as I scratch the back of the $15 iTunes card my grandparents gifted to me. As I begin to type in OKGO’s Here It Goes Again, as the first song I purchase, I change my mind and type in The Beatles’ Revolution.

29

I relax outside alternating between reading Stephen King and beading on my twirling chair as I now do every relaxing summer day.

30

Went to the shore.  Won a giant yellow bee stuffed animal.  I am the skeeball champion!

31

This is so embarrassing.  I don’t know how to open my locker.  In all my years of private school, home school, and Catholic school, I’ve never had a locker until entering The Academy.  Mrs. Bow laughs as she teaches me how to operate a locker.

32

Holding a brain is a lot different than I thought it would be.  It is mushier and lighter than I imagined.

33

“Ever see Forrest Gump?” my new friend, Ruchir, asks at lunch, as I mush the jelly on my sandwich.

34

I walk down the street pulling my ****-tzu and Maltese in my wagon.  Lester almost jumps out when he sees a terrier twice his size, but I catch him just in time.  It is the scariest moment I have had in a long time.

35

At the veteran’s home, I see Ray and tell him how much I love The Academy.  He smiles and asks if I’d like to sing with him.

36

The phone rings.  It’s my new friend Shannon.  She needs help with our Biomedical Sciences homework.

37

I spend Columbus Day at The Carpet Maven, my parent’s carpet store.  St. John Vianney never gave days off for “made up holidays.”

38

Solve for x in the equation Ln(x)=8…I haven’t been able to get that problem out of my head all day.  That is the problem that earned me the Best in Class Award on my first marking period report card.

39

It’s Sunday.  I walk down Main Street to pick up bagels for my family.  The smiley, bright-eyed girl behind the counter at the bagel shop is Val.  She is a student at Mother Superior High School. She asks if my unicorn is being nice to my flamingo.

40

I look at the flamingo and unicorn on my bench.  They’re fine. I’m okay.  Everybody ‘s alright.   Everything’s good.
This poem reflects the struggles of transitioning from middle school to high school.
punk rock hippy Apr 2016
There's an earthquake going on inside me, my chest is the fault line, My stomach is a shoe lace factory, and  a tornado decided today was a great day to do tornado things.

Ya know? It really ***** when your lungs turn to vacuums and not the good kind, the kind of **** when you can hear sand knock around trying to find a way down. There's a sandstorm in your lungs and all you need is an inhaler, but breathing is easy so you don't need an inhaler.

My mom taught me how to handle this. She handles this.
She taught me cold weather can freeze this over.
But when this fails it can turn into tar and we know that tar is hotter than ****.

Are you aware that it doesn't work out when your stomach becomes a shoelace factory and a tornado happens to do tornado things?
My mom handles this. I asist.
Her guts turn to strings and don't do very gutsy things.
Her pancreas called in sick.
That was 3 years ago.
Her cheeks aren't very cheeky.
Her bones show through her skin.


Every now and then I feel the ground start to rumble and I wait for us to fall in.
She's my inhaler.
The pharmacist at CVS says I am not prescribed an inhaler anymore.
so in it's place.
I prescribe myself cigarettes

I need something to inhale
cigarettes seem a logical alternative to inhalers

deliberatly I decide to not drive
to the cigar store.
i walk to the cigar store.

it is far enough to be inconvenient
which means maybe
If I am not destined to buy this cigarette
I will receive an overwhelming sensation to turn back

I always add time for potential divine intervention to my agenda.
It happens often enough to be logical

we may have different definitions of logical

the cashier asks my age
And I tell him 21.
I am 22.
somehow In the confusion of waiting for god to prescribe me an overwhelming emotional reaction to not buy cigarettes
Instead of an inhaler.
I forget a whole ******* year of my life.

this is great context for
How I trust myself when making decisions.
which is to say
I don't trust myself to make descisions.

I buy the cigarettes.

upon searching for the optimal location
to loiter and slowly **** myself.
I stumble upon the old teen center.
the first place I was a mentor.

Out the side of the building
There's this rock
Long enough to sit five or so children
two laying down.
it's Perferated like a candy bar
each rectangle curved slightly
custom fit to years of munchkin ****

this slump right here
this slump is my munchkin ****.

each break of chocolate
on the candy bar rock
has a ladyslipper growing behind it.
tips of the five purple flowers
stretch to align perfect with the tips of our childhood belly buttons

humbled, I brush the leaves
excavate delicately
this heirloom.
I had forgotten.

The sky is recovering When I lay myself on the rock.
light grey clouds that want to cry
an optimistic sun that won't let them

I Cover my face with an old journal
made of old book smell.
I smile into the pages.
my lips barely touching the silk threading of her binding.
I've never breathed so intimately
a new lover.
the tip of my nose tucked into her spine.
honeymoon phase, Intoxicating.
Still excited to be in love.

there's breath here
wisdom in the records of
loving young,
cherrishing this new book smell.
Filling your chest with it.

When memories are tangible
There are no more expiration dates

Fill my lungs with
the crisp of unturned pages,
worn leather covers
Soft silk crosstitches

Kiss air into me
from the space between your lines.
I know how intimate an untold story can be.

Today I started breathing
I fell in love With a metaphor.

I never did smoke that cigarette.
Andrew Quilles May 2013
We were just lifting weights.
Then she went off to yoga class.
I was doing my reps.
She came back tired and worn out.
I told her to call it a day.
She said she wanted to do more reps with me.
How could I resist her big brown eyes begging me?
It happened while we were doing suicides.
She began to slow down.
I turned to look back at her.
She was on the floor.
I ran to her and turned her on her back.
She was coughing.
She was barely breathing.
I asked her where her inhaler was.
She shook her head and whispered she has lost it.
She began to shake.
Then she fell silent.
I yelled for help.
Forgetting we were in a soundproof gymnasium.
I gave her mouth-to-mouth.
After six tries she woke up.
She steadied her breathing.
She sat up and held onto me.
She said thanks and hugged me.
I picked her up and put her in the car.
Now we are home.
She is laying down.
I am watching over her.

She could have died.
It would have been my fault.
She almost died today.
I couldn't live without her.
Kara Rose Trojan Jul 2015
I don’t write about my Dad or God so
I will write about how
Moses told all the Jews to slay a lamb, take the blood, and paint its blood around the doors
so that the Angel of Death may Passover the marked houses.

The story goes that Dad (or God) was
Wobbling down the street with heavy breathing like a deflated walrus washed on shore,
kneaded jowls bouncing beneath his jaw with each bouncing step,
Because he had to order special shoes for his diabetic feet.  
When he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and collapsed beneath
The L train and curious stares blurred against a man’s fight to live.
Fiddling with either his rosaries or toolkit or pants or
Phone or newspaper or lungs or shoes or inhaler
And I’m sure they’ve seen him before,
But I’m sure this time it was different –
They would have a story to tell to their co-workers and loved ones
About their walk on the sidewalk by the hospital
Where an old man collapsed
And they would echo the words, “Count your blessings,”
But have no idea what that means.
He was dead for two minutes and had bleeding on the brain.

This is about more than just myself
And him
And the way he made me feel.
This is also about the man next door to him
And how I came to learn to never talk about my Father or God.

It is a Saturday morning with snow on the ground
And there is guilt frosted on my back
I have not moved in a few hours (perhaps years)
And there are tubes like translucent octopus straddling his mouth and mounting
His chest
As it rises – and breaks – rises – and breaks (so romantically)
With each second beep of the heart monitor.

In the general waiting room, some men and women arched in their seats with gleeful excitement
And balloons and footies for newborn babies
to deposit
Something hopeful and crisp into the umbilical residue.
So as to mask the horrors of what human health really is.
Staring at what is truly written as if the “I” myself
Is too special to suffer.

And, then, there is the man (stranger) with a smile
Too transparent against the masks bouncing robotically in the foreground
The man (stranger) –
he asked me if he was ready to
Make count with his major failures and major contradictions,
Thereby ready to vacate (physical) body (earth)  
up to the Lord. He spoke to me about The Lord as if I never knew him,
never knew his stripped promises of salt statues
never knew the bent knees and heads during Mass
stripped away the infallible memories of people
of people
who knew no better
yet checked each other
to thank him for their
chosen suffering.
never knew the responsive sweat dotting HELP along new mother’s brows
never knew the elegance of bliss/love during *******  
never knew the muddy feet of a wretched child clambering between belts.
never knew the frantic swerve of hurried fury from a coat’s hem.

my brother said he was going to
time how sporadic, chaotic, hypnotic
My three-year-old haunches switched up the stairs –
Animal-like, on all-fours,
swiveling from one grimy patch of
cement-splotched carpet patch to
the frozen barbecue-sauce colored tile at the front door to
another grimy-cement colored carpet patch to

the tacky, stuck-together carpet-hairs hardened by dish-soap calligraphy –
combed the S.O.S. message I crafted one hot, sticky June evening
after slapping the ***** of my feet into mud
then tracking pawprints through the kitchen door,
transcribing my help-yelps as Dad’s belt cracked –


Climbing then freezing at rage’s zenith,
His face contorted like gargoyle-wrinkles deepened with sweat
broken peals of thunder-skin splitting like a river’s delta through the house
Flooding pockets of silence then bursting with a child’s sniffs
since crying never helped me, anyway;
undeniable red-shame pooling split skin after each crack-smack
doubled back then cooled its buckle on his thumb.

With comfort, Aunt Joan assured me: “Love is
the second most mispriced of human goals.”
What’s First? “Liberty.”
So I’d lie amongst the dishsoap-doodles
     like Alice in the daisies
Limbs outstretched --
          like DaVinci’s Millenial Man
     or
           Jesus on the cross  
     or
           hopeless girl losing her virginity
     or
          Ma reaching towards the door lock
     or
          McMurphy post-lobotomy
     or
          Santiago dreaming of Lions on an African beach
     or
          fireworks blossoming against an emptied sky --
And trace the cracks in the ceiling with the blue veins on my arm,
like
       roads on a map;
I'd mouth the names of places I'd never seen/heard of but
       I would go in my mind –
The mountains I’d climb steady on all-fours, switching my haunches
As if Escape was the warm, fuzzy world only children would dream of -- then linger with their eyes shut to return there -- hidden beyond the garden of Love and Liberty –

No, sir,
        No, man,
        No, stranger,
                I never knew there was such a way.
-- how could I go undone?
He hogged the conversation – I hogged the facts
Everything I’m leaning toward is a cut in the conversation, sir. How could I go undone?
He asks me what his name is and I tell him, Ken. His name was Ken.(Or God.)
He asks why he is here and I tell him
You don’t need to know that. I don’t know why I am here. Why are any of us here?

He then prays for him and invites me to as well.
I tell him,
When you come undone, I come undone
We’ll all come undone in the end
We were doomed to die the moment we are born
So who will pray for you in the waiting room, sir?
No thank you, sir, I’m just fine, since who
Knows the way or what somebody says
All I know is that I can put you away. But, I will not.
So why don’t you sit your excited *** down?
If only he could understand the joke.
May the man learn the dead man’s float and seek solace in the cadence of Charon’s poling of his ferry.

What valor. What courage. You all turned out so well.
The leading man is dying.

Escape is the erased movement where the sinewy lights and colors behind dark eyelids stand steady long
after the first disturbance, then usher those that were hurt
into Charon's ferry
because anything feels better than everything that was taken.
Ivie Nov 2013
I hold the negative feeling closer; I hold them like a bag filled with candy on the night of Halloween in a little boy’s arms,
I haven’t learnt that they give you cavities yet, my brain wrapped up in folds and folds of sheets made up of envy
Envy is like an old tree roots, springing from everywhere trying to get to the surface, the surface prone to erosion, is ****** into the black hole of envy
I can’t deny that I don’t like you talking to her, no I don’t, and I don’t even who I am anymore
This is not the person that I used to be, you have changed me so much, I worsen and worsen like a sapling left without sunlight
They say I run, away from feelings, oh I have tried to run away from you for so long but I fail like the ant trying to climb the 18th floor building,
                                     And all this time I have kept my inhaler closer to my lips than ever
You hold me close like bag full of lyrics that are going to numb your burning slashes, that’s what I am, the medicine,
But I am never the lover or the girl who speaks of things that make you laugh, like the way the poppies laugh in the soft breeze or sunflowers in the meadows
I have said goodbye more times, than the no of times, the oranges have bled their citrus in my eyes while peeling and onions have made my cry while slicing
I need to slice all my feelings, dissect them, write the formulas and theories on the white sheets and paste them on my wall,
                                         For everytime I am on the “running back to you” stage of separation
I will hold the negative feelings as far as possible; his dentist just gave him a root canal and filled up 8 cavities,
I think he has had enough of candies without brushing twice for a while and I think I have had enough of you for a lifetime.
Not a moment sleeps
when our motion wakes
and perpetuates a new arising

The greatest races ever run
are those without a finish
and the hares become confused
to which it becomes obvious
of why the hero was the tortoise

An anti-hero now
when a Casio watch
measures nano-seconds

The western world is exhausted
and the road stretches
past the horizon
and the East have been running long
for over 4,000 years
and they don't even need an inhaler.

So who is laughing now?
Well the answer is quite clear;
whoever found it funny.
Pen Lux Nov 2010
I need daylight to be over
so that the octupus leaves in my back yard can breathe
all the dogs left them swelling and burning for daily bread,
daily milk, and last calls to board the plane.
It's really **** hard to understand what the person on the intercom is saying when you've got stalks of corn growing out of your ears
imitating how rough and useless everything that comes in is
how it's just sprouting out and some people are going to get hit in the face if they don't realize that personal bubbles are more important than an inhaler, at least at this point.

The ball in my mouse has fallen out and now I can't seem to get anywhere, drinking bottles of cough syrup to try and feel the sickening sweetness of your kiss, when all you really wanted was to be someone else. The lion painted on my shirt tells me I'm wrong for paying attention to the little things, like the color of your sweater and if you made it or not.

I feel like I'm following a snow storm in a bathing suit,
which makes it awkward during interviews but my mom tells me I need to get a job and start thinking for myself and thinking about others because I only have one brother and he might **** himself soon.

Teachers don't seem to realize that my answers sound like my mouths full of peanut butter and they don't know that when I turned 9 I used to smear it on my skin and let my dog lick it off. I hope that doesn't ******* off as boring or twisted, but I've got enough cough syrup to know that my lungs will stay inside my body, even if they're all chewed up digesting in my stomach with the rest of the things I said that I wish I could take back, with the rest of the tongues that fumbled and mumbled phrases that made me look like a tobacco spitting uncle from Tennesse.

it's not that I don't want to see you anymore,
or that I want you to grow up and be something more,
but I'm not the same person I was before,
I'm starting to lose myself and I feel it seeping from the very core.

Life.
It's like a black hole or a star that burnt out,
it's scary and not as beautiful as it was when I was a kid.
People are getting better looking, growing into themselves like marijuana plants.
These women have vertigo and not enough time to walk where they need to be, so they asked me to go to the store and they paid me with dinner, I sat at the table in a rocking chair and wondered why they had so much hair on the floor.
it wasn't like we were having a bad time
but we sure didn't know how we got to talking about ******* and cranberry juice.
All the while I felt like saying something meaningful,
but I knew they wouldn't get my jokes and I knew that my sarcastic tendancies would get the best of me and we'd be in a grinder full of bugs and rocks and all of those things we avoid when we're afraid.

I could feel my teeth wanting to break as I chewed my food
and clenched my jaw at the conversation.
The woman to my left said I looked like someone she knew,
I said,
"You do know me."

the words came out like a siren of warning,
I had gone too far.

I looked at my hand that held their fancy spoon
my reflection stared back like it didn't know me
and I could see my eyes turn away and I could see my hand on the door ****
but what I couldn't see was the woman,
who followed me home.
the woman,
the one that knows me best.
mars Apr 2014
it's been thirty seven days
since we last spoke and the
only reason i know is because
that's how many packs of cigarettes
I've forced into my lungs

i drank an entire liquor store out
just to feel your bitter kisses burn
my lips and dehydrate my heart the
way you would rip me apart and leave
me to wither away in the dark night

i've gotten an inhaler just so i could
pump your heartbeat into my chest
to feel alive because this feeling is
so **** ******* suffocating and im
dying im dying imdyingimdying

please send help

please don't leave

please love me



please
i cant breath it hurts so much
tyler Jan 2014
sometimes, I miss your love.

sometimes I miss it so much it hurts

today was one of those days

I sat & saw things, stupid love texts on twitter, that reminded me of you.

but the crazy part was, they were about letting go.

letting go so that they could be happy without the love they had thought they would stop breathing without.

and I realized, it's been a whole year since I needed your love to breathe.

I don't even need an inhaler from time to time like I used to.

hell sometimes, I even run now & it feels so good.

but every once in a while, I sneak a peek in the back of the drawer where I keep the inhaler & then I remember,

I can breathe on my own now
Jessica, if you ever see this, I will always love you. If not in the ways I used to, in the ways you can only love your first love.
JR Potts Sep 2014
An absent father's failure with an inhaler in hand

Insecurity seething from his skin

Manifesting it's self as bulbous red abrasions on his forehead

A heavy breathing child who's eyes were often aimed low

His expectations for life even lower

A little over weight but not enough to concern his pediatrician

He cut gym class a lot because of the showers

Now fourteen he had seen a few ******

He knew he didn't match up

It was better that no one knew he thought

He went on living like this

A pale shadow hovering in the halls

A faceless nobody in the background of someone else's group photo

A ghost who was only noticed by those who tortured him

Bullies like sharks can smell blood in the water

And he was chum

I still vividly see the feeding frenzy

I still remember the day we were told he took his own life

NO shrieks, NO cries, NOT even a whimper was heard

Almost a concerted sigh of boredom

That night there was a party

Not to celebrate his death

But an apathetic gesture of his nonexistence

I attended as was socially expected of me

Even wore a smile

But my mind wrestled with his suicide

I thought of how much I hated him

I hated the smell of his weakness

I hated the 'poor me' attitude

I hated him for taking his own life

Leaving me to feel guilty

That I had done nothing to help him

As if I was responsible in some way

...
Kimberly Seibert Aug 2014
The hoods go up, the bandanas come out.
Their day really starts, when the sun goes down.
Geared up with paint, backpacks are full.
Armed not only with colors, but triggers to pull.

No stops in the stairwell, it's straight to the top.
Hope you grabbed your inhaler, in case of the cops.
The last couple steps are slathered in ice.
Their will to go higher it really entices.

Reaching the rooftop, the flashlights go off.
But the rooftop itself just isn't enough.
Steel rails to trail, the water tower is their peak.
Their names and their tags, voices to speak.

So when the city looks up, from I-75.
Their beacon of art, is kissing the sky.
So allow me to use your lungs and your breath as my inhaler.
Because my lungs are forever severed, so be as my tailor.

Hesitation in my inhales will be the interpretation of your respire.
A seen misconception of a falling chest to the resurrection by a deep breath.

But the oxygen you gasp for will be appropriated to fuel my fire.

Drifting next to me is the spilling of your lungs,
cloak for inconsistency,
armor for what I confront.  
A refugee for the alterations and the changes.
Your spine is an easel as your body the canvas.

Let me paint you a pretty picture
Reflected to the pupils in your eyes
Darker than the trench that allows you to see the beautiful lies.

Couplets of brush strokes and puppets that you choke
The air you abuse, now CO2
Is the kindle to my fire.
R A Sanders Nov 2011
I smoked a cigarette,
I took my inhaler,
I argued with my dog,
I took him out to ***;
Oh the glamour of my life,
What a person I choose to be;

I slipped in the shower,
I got soap in my eyes,
I have a bruise on my shoulder,
I got cut on my thigh,
Oh how nice is the high life,
but a web I weave;

I burnt my breakfast,
I had a drink,
My house caught on fire,
I watched it flame,
Oh how hot this life is,
What a light I see;

Me, on my pedestal,
Me, high on life,
Me, with my high expectations,
Me, taking flight,
Oh what a life I life,
What a person I choose to be,
What a fool I am,
What a fool I like to be.
Samantha Bauman Jan 2014
I have bad lungs,
they are scarred and inflamed
I cannot walk far
without needing my inhaler
puff puff
so I can do something
that so can everyone
I want to be able to run
I want to be able to walk around
and not feel like I'm going to pass out
breathing is underrated
people do not appreciate
until that is taken away
inhale
exhale
I cannot find the medium
I need a coolant upon my tubes
so that my breathing is smooth
no longer so scarred and inflamed
able to breathe again
inspired by lung disease
FinkZ Mar 2019
If only forgetting you are like smoking
My dreams and memories are the tobacco burning
Watch each of the tobacco leafs turning into ashes
Then put the ashes on my ashtray
Throw them away so I could see them goes away

If only to end my love for you by smoking
Using the poisonous carbon monoxide to weaken my heart’s desire to keep you with me,
**** the butterflies inside my belly
And the cancer cells will eat the remaining feelings inside me

Sometimes I wished smoking helps
But reality, every inhaler I took, my life slowly ends
Every cigarettes I burnt doesn’t lead me one step further
Most likely I slowly make myself to be dead in one spot
I smoked too much I guess

— The End —