Nothing like living without air for so long
that you begin to get used to it.
Your heart rate slows and you ration your movements.
Your senses gain new dimension
as they are strained to run on little fuel.
Too many waste away their breaths.
Their air is there and plentiful,
so they join frivolous activity.
No thought as to choosing how to move,
simply rushing and clumsily pushing through their moments.
Useless actions only to come back again full circle
to where they are started.
Nothing is learned,
and as if they forgot so quickly the burns on their body, jump full into high flame.
But me,
I am deprived.
And from the deprivation,
appreciation.
And from the appreciation,
like the sweetest honey,
joy.
Moments concentrated with a synchronicity
and bond
thick.
To have had breath all the while,
one cannot fathom the truly precious value
of the single unit of time: the moment.
Each pounding of this beating vessel,
a knocking on my door.
Outside awaits something
both wondrous and unknown.
Closer and closer to days of fuller breathing.
For now, I breathe slowly.
