2 Poems

Breathe

They stopped putting lead in American gasoline

in the 1970s

Someone figured out lead poisoning

I think

Twenty three years later

Violent crime is decreasing in America

And someone looks at a bunch of data

And maybe an apple falls on their head

And so we discover

That if you inhale a bunch of lead as a kid

You are more likely

To hurt someone when you grow up

And so it turns out

You can treat your kid well

You can apply new policing theories

You can work on the school system

You can vow never to harm others

And all the while have your efforts undermined your air

With each breath

It’s like challenging the Universe to chess.

L used to smile at the air as he breathed it into the world

In what ways does it matter

How we treat the air we breathe?

This summer I started having panic attacks

I would gasp for air

At first I thought it was an allergic reaction.

“I can’t breathe”

“You look fine”

“I’m not fine”

We go to emerg.

“I can’t breathe”

“You are still breathing”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes”

And for the next two hours

“Am I still breathing?”

“Yes”

“I’m sorry I keep asking but I’m still breathing right?”

“Yes”

“I know I’m being crazy but am I still breathing?”

“Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You are still breathing. Can’t you tell?”

Just breathe in –

“Oh my god it’s not working!”

Good, and breathe out –

“My throat is closing and I’m going to die.”

That’s it, and breathe in -

“I can’t even tell if it’s working”

Ok now breathe out -

22 y.o. pleasant young lady known to me for years without any sig problems who developed an anxiety disorder in Sept 2014

“I can’t breathe”

If she hadn’t specifically noted I was pleasant

Maybe it would sound less like I broke

“I can’t breathe”

We injure each other building walls out of hard bricks and then we injure ourselves falling against them

“I can’t breathe”

Maybe when the wolf couldn’t huff down the brick house he stopped believing he was breathing, too

“I can’t breathe”

“Thousands of people poured into Boston Common the night of December 4 to demonstrate outrage over court decisions exonerating…”

“I can’t breathe”

Breathing is a palindrome if you could breathe backwards it would be the same.

In Out In Out In Out

Or maybe instead of filling our lungs and letting air go back into the world, the world would fill itself and let the air go back into our lungs.

Out In Out In Out In

We live in a system whose only tool to handle violence is to treat the perpetrator with violence

I inhale lead from the air

And then the world inhales lead from me

In In In In In In

Somebody needs to exhale.

David Foster Wallace gave us the parable of the swimming fish

“How’s the water?” asks one

“What the hell is water?” asks the other

Imagine we are fish in Lake Ontario for a day

And over 25 millimeters of rain

Pitter-patters gently in

Causing a routine overflow of the sewage system.

If we do not know we are in water

Do we notice that we are swimming in our own shit?

Or do we just have a harder time breathing

And get diagnosed with anxiety?

My Zio Vincenzo could not breathe either

He had an oxygen tank

He sat beside it in an armchair

He had to stop smoking

So the oxygen wouldn’t blow up his face

A chain breather

He finally cut that habit, too.

I got charged with reckless breathing

“You have to be careful with such a powerful thing,” the police officer warned me.

“We have a no toleration policy around here.”

“Sorry ,” I said, “Sometimes I don’t realize I’m doing it.”

She gave me a pamphlet titled, “Breathe easy: A citizen’s guide to responsible uses of breath”

Extinguish candles

Blow bubbles

Revive the coals of a campfire

Raise and lower your chest under a loved one’s head

But then a note at the bottom

Transgressors’ breath may be confiscated

I got off with a warning and a $50 fine.

Meanwhile I am going to see more and more qualified experts

Top Authorities on breath.

“Yes. You are breathing.” They confirm.

Last night I dreamed I was in the Afterlife

I met God at the entry

“God! You I can trust absolutely. Am I still breathing?”

“No. You are dead.”

I am relieved because while it’s not the answer I would have chosen

At least I finally know for sure.

Then I wake up

I get why Zio Vincenzo still tried to sneak cigarettes

Sometimes no matter how much we huff and puff

Nothing blows down

The window does not fog

The soup does not cool

Sometimes we have no one to lay their head on our chest

And tell us if it’s moving.

At work an expert consultant came in to do a seminar “Smart breathing in a modern economy”

He opened the floor for questions

Can I breathe out a promotion?

NO

Can I use it to win at Mario Bros?

NO

Can I breathe dinner on the table?

NO

Can I get true love with it?

NO

Can you give me ten simple steps to breathing my way to success?

NO

It sounds increasingly like a waste of time

IT WILL KEEP YOU ALIVE

But I already got life

It was my first ever achievement

I really had it together back then.

YOU HAVE TO KEEP GETTING LIFE ALL THE TIME

IT’S NOT A ONE-OFF.

Hasn’t anyone figured out how to hack this yet?

NO

I don’t like this system.

WELL.

Today I saw a picture of a young man on the news

Holding a sign that says “I can’t breathe”

I want to tell him,

Yes! Yes! You are still breathing. You are in fact a very impressive breather.

It turns out

This is what breathing feels like sometimes.

Listen for your heart beat

Slowly echoed by your breath beat

And tell yourself

Until you believe it

I breathe in

And I am breathing in

I breathe out

I can breathe

There is no skipping the hard part

I guess

There is no skipping the hard part.

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