poetry oneshots

breath

a/n: this is a super old one i found buried somewhere. not my proudest work. but oh well.

it's ironic, isn't it?

how the first thing we do that makes us alive is what we take for granted most

how our first breath is celebrated with hurrahs and hallelujahs but

no one counts or celebrates our second breath, third breath, fourth breath, hundredth breath

we go through the motions of every day, like mad mice running on rusty clockwork:

do this, do that, go here, go there -

we drive ourselves insane with the weight of petty things and the burden of petty people

but we forget what's keeping us going: breath

we forget to tell ourselves to pause, to stop,

to take a breath

we forget that with every second we live, we're one second closer to the day we stop living

and we don't appreciate what we have till it's gone

stop reading now.

follow what i say.

breathe in, hold it for two seconds,

and now, breathe out.

see how long you can sustain that flow of air, the hissing sound between your teeth

ten seconds? five seconds? one second?

in ten seconds, the universe expands by ninety-two miles

in five seconds, two people die of starvation

in one second, four babies are born.

why are we wasting our time chasing headlights and running after fantasies

but forgetting to live?

we don't realise the value of each breath, you see

to most, it's something that'll always go on, something elementary

but how many more tear-stained, bloodshot faces

of weeping mothers and grieving civilians do we need to see

how many more cries of "i wish i could go back" do we need to hear

before our eyes are opened?

when we are counting down the last few seconds that our life will stay on hold,

only then will we realise the weight of the breaths we forgot existed

we'll only start to notice them, we'll only start to care

in our final rasping moments; when breath becomes air