Waiting for Breath

It's when I notice my own breath, how I have to pull it in like a thin rope, how the lack of it pushes at my eyeballs, how it leaves behind a burn and a cough. If it weren't for that, I would not think about it, not the way I notice wind in trees or rain blown sideways. To not notice feels like a gift, the one I earned in the children's wards of hospitals, behind oxygen tents waiting.