Stolen Breath

First breath shocked with divinity, bright as an explosion,
Now it was mine, all mine, and I cried in the commotion.
They said I was noisy, an unruly babe,
So, my breath and I, we were put in a cage.

Mother, where are you? Father, can you hear?
My chest heaves for someone to listen to my fear.
The halls sucked the air, every lung had exhaled
Where had it gone, the living breath of the world?
 
Soon I awoke to the insidious scourge,
My own breath was the trouble, it had to be purged.
Deny it, suppress it, put it out with my thumb,
Leave no room for exception to what had to be done.
 
I once met a man who stole breath to blow fire
His own breath was long gone, one grotesque but admired.
He could free us who lived by the pain of own air
Deliver us from oxygen, death is only a scare.
 
There were people who said no one listened to their words,
Was their breath so precious? It could barely be heard.
I had given up my own, shut my ears and my eyes,
Thus, I kneeled on their necks and ignored their raw cries.
 
Is there anything left in me that deserves to be saved
But the memory of sweet breath I once treasured and praised?
Come back to me again, in the time when I hoped,
And I will listen to your heartbeat, dear breath that I choked.

​On the murderers of Georg Floyd.