The Story of My Breath

I have never been without you.

I would feel embarrassed without you.

If there ever was a mom4ent that you left me

& I fell to the floor as a result

& a passerby would compress & kiss you back to me,

although you clearly wanted to go,

I would feel ashamed.

 

 

I used to want to be the best breather,

to breathe deeper than anyone has ever breathed before;

to breathe so deep that I would rise off the ground just a little bit;

to breathe so deep that my exhalations would

scrub my vocal chords of all this cigarette smoke;

so deep that the sound from my larynx would be

identical to the sound of a flushing toilet;

so deep that on each inhale I would bulge up,

my clothes ripping off my body;

so deep that in the club you’d think I was the bass;

so deep that you could see my ribs on my back.

 

I want to go to the deepest levels of breathing as if they were places:

hyperventilation in Mexico City,

Lion's Breath in South Sudan,

sighing in Siberia & Patagonia,

Enlightened Breath on Chomolungma's peak.

I'd breathe myself to adventures.

 

I would breathe Disasters.

Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Irene

& the Japanese Tsunami,

all originated from my mouth.

 

Having inhaled such a quantity of air,

My body would have no choice but to enlarge exponentially

or explode.

 

 

 

 

My lungs would become excavation sites,

more massive & mysterious than Wind Cave.

My trachea would expand to the width of a smokestack

& my esophagus, a thread in comparison.

 

As the world's best breather,

my breath would alter our planet’s motion through space.

I’d send us hurtling towards Mars after ricocheting off Venus

& jet propel the blue planet into other galaxies.

 

Naturally, Earth would not hold up.

I’d breathe us to apocalypse.

But, having grown to the size of a planet,

the remainder of the human race

would simply fall to my gravity

& no one would notice

because my fingernails grow at the same rate

as the motions of the tectonic plates.

 

My breath would liquefy.

Having breathed so hard my bones & internal organs

would disintegrate under pressure.

Blood mixing with breath becomes magma

forms landforms as it squeezes through orifices & pores.

My breath would solidify.

& no one would notice my body’s the Earth

because my fingernails grow at the same rate

as the motions of the tectonic plates.

I embody the Earth.

 

However, Breath,

I’ve yet to breathe quite so much.

I’ve hardly ever breathed even 1% of all of that.

If I tried to breathe so deep would I be powerful enough?

If I haven’t extended you before you go

would you be disappointed?

But, maybe if I did breathe that deep

you would tire & leave me.