You’d think it’d be simple,
to allow the stomach to swell,
feel the balloons of your lungs to fill,
your chest to rise like one of those balloons
lifting skyward

—and breathe.

But you find that as you try to inhale,
the vines you once thought so sweet,
decorated with little valentine-shaped leaves,
have Godzilla’d their way around the
sacs that frame your heart,

and by golly, inflation feels nearly impossible.
Of course, it’s possible. You’re still here,
drawing breath, even if they’re short, shallow
ones, and you can’t for the life of you think
why this should be so.

And then you notice your full eyes, your damp
cheeks, your nose that, while dripping, feels
packed with cotton, and you think,
Oh, yes, that’s why.

When emotion emerges from you as bodily fluids,
you have to remind your lungs, Inhale. Exhale.
You know how to do this. Again. Inhale. Exhale.

Feel the vines loosen. Hand your fluttering heart
a large drumstick, the kind with an amply
padded end.

Say, beat.
Again. Again.

And breathe. And beat. Breathe and beat.
Until you can rise, teary and spent,
and remind your lower limbs:
one foot, then the other foot.
One foot, other foot.

And there you go, off into the next thing
in the next place, you and your lovely lungs,
taking in oxygen, putting out CO2, you and
your always-beating heart powering
your powerhouse brain, those arms
and legs and feet—

the breathing and beating you,
so very much a part of this thrumming
and humming world.