Breathe.
Breathe in the air that is meant to keep us alive that we gulp down like a drug because we know we can’t live without it. Because the moment we stop is the moment our lives stop. We spend our whole lives breathing in and out. Keeping you alive, keeping your heart beating.
Watch your breath trail up to the sky on your exhale.
Enjoy the feeling of the warm air passing through your esophagus on your inhale.
It isn’t always so easy to
Breathe.
You can hear your mother’s voice whispering that word, her comforting exhale lingering on your ear. Because you just stubbed your toe on the edge of the table and you’ve never felt pain like that before. The tears stream down your face, but you look into her pretty hazel eyes with sweet breath whispers and feel reassured. Your breath matches hers, synchronizing in perfect rhythm, comforting you the way rain on a tin roof does. One word and you know that life isn’t over – things just happen sometimes that makes it hard to
Breathe.
It’s your first date with a new date, and you can feel your heart about to leap out of your chest as your breath is getting hollow because you always expect the fairy tales to turn into nightmares. You know your prince charming will come and then leave because you steal the air from those around you. Because it’s the only thing you know how to do. But then, the first time you fall in love, you experience what it’s like to be left breathless yet still be able to
Breathe.
You have to remind yourself to breathe the first time he kisses you. Because boys steal your air just for the fun of leaving you lightheaded. And they create a burning desire in you to kiss them again because you want that air back. You become infatuated by the idea that this exchange of air is where happiness comes from and as long as they were there to take your breath away, you would be okay.
You have to remind yourself to breathe the last time he kisses you too. Because it’s harder to find air when you’re trying so hard to keep exhaling in the hope that it will bring him back. That your trail of hot air will create a road map back to you and if that wasn’t enough you were scattering around pieces of your heart too. And you breathe out until you have surrounded yourself with fog. Until you can’t tell which way is up and which is down and you need to find a way to bring yourself back to the place you were before you met him. And you forget how to
Breathe.
We tell ourselves that as long as our breath is stable, we are fine. We lie. It was like taking a pencil crayon to paper and trying to color inside the lines. A single color covering the entire page, knowing you were in complete control of your breath. Breathing through the pain. Through the knives stabbing your lungs as you try and choke down the concept of reality. Choking on a pill that is too big to swallow. You gasp for air until your stomach is burning. The desire to escape this body leaves you wondering how many more times you would allow your lungs to inflate before you decided you didn’t want to
Breathe.
Your lungs hit the ribcage of the body that has weakened. Gasping for oxygen in hopes that the seeds you planted in your frail body would begin to grow. Because you didn’t realize that being fragile would make the breath stop halfway down your throat and create constant black dots floating across your vision. You’re trying to get healthy, but it’s hard when there’s no room for oxygen. On the brink of death, you begin to appreciate the air you always took for granted. Drowning under five feet of ocean water is enough to make anyone appreciate the life they were given and you desperately try to reach the surface for a chance to
Breathe.
You were raised on the expectation that if your breath was taken away, something was wrong. You were sick. Awestruck. Hung up on someone or something you could never have. But they never taught you that the first time you fell in love with yourself, this would happen too.
Just Breathe!
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Breath Feature Image