Breathing Room

I crave a moment’s respite
From the cloying, suffocating grind
Of expectation, circumstance and fear.
There are breaths I’ve never taken,
Senses honed to death,
Dulled and dumbed by misuse.

Focus slips, the lamentable puzzle
Of how to pause, how to breathe,
Is cracked and fogged like old glass.
Unsolvable, it seems,
But for those brief and fleeting moments
When the oxygen seeps in.

Sometimes they’re hard-won
A chorus of snatched inhales
As glittering spots skate my eyes,
Exploding suns in untread galaxies,
And I know the vacuum will be
Quick to swaddle my lungs anew.

And sometimes they burst, unbidden
Through the smoke to resuscitate,
Refresh, with life’s saving kiss, and
I forget those days I was left alone,
To choke on the buttery air
Beneath a curdled sky.