“Respiration”

just one last breath.

  
allow me to breathe life into you

be the whisper of dust collected in shallow grains

excavated from the earth and mineralized into a thousand pieces

  
of you.

  
let your chest rise and fall into

rhythmic beats reserved for soul deep conversations and

intellectual being reservations. to have you speak, just

one more time, one more moment, one more second.

  
just one last breath.

  
allow me to manually stimulate your aorta and ventricles

pulsate the veins filled with cellular blood and genetic DNA

that surpasses the scientific human being that walks the earth

normalized in crowds and stands apart with your specific individualism.

to have you, just one more time. one more minute. one more moment.

because I remember. I remember the

smile that used to spread eagle across your face,

your teeth glaring at the sun, polished to radiate the raging inferno

that feeds off the energy of that which is you.

  
just one more breath.

  
one more inhalation to extend your exhalation

one more chest to rise and fall as I glare upon

the nape of your neck and seize the smooth roundness

of your diaphragm,

rise and fall

beat and beat

breathe and breathe. I have missed you.

subconsciously your mind elsewhere,

riddled with enigmatic and complex dilemmas of the everyday

living, depressed with the recess which you have allowed yourself

to drown in the pool of life only reserved for swimming. You have sunk to

the bottomless pit of the end of the ocean,

and it is I, whom must reserve the life jacket

and dive in head first to ebb and flow through the currents

which try to hold us down.


 
but I cannot swim.

  
Reluctance is a luxury I cannot afford. So with my breath,

I inhale, hold and dive in head first

to save you.


 
just one more breath.

  
come back to me. I can resuscitate the monotony and

normalcy which abhors the soul connection

the day to day nuances that destroy the

inner reflection of the mirrored beings of how

two became one and now I share with you

how even an old life has been saved, just begun.


 
breathe.

  
I demand you to awake. demand you to open your eyes

and make your lids flutter. demand that you flex your muscles and give me

the sign that you are alive. demand that your chest rises and falls in orchestrated

movements. demand that I am your Omega, your Alpha and I shall not lose this…

  
this breath. this precious breath. you cannot go back to the land of the dead

I will not celebrate el dia de los muertos or shadow dance

near your tombstone, sing quiet "Amazing Grace" and reform a hundred

hail mary's. I will not bury you beneath the same soil which

God created you to bring me, I will not bury you one rib less

as I borrowed from thee. I will not dress in black and mourn

what we used to have and cherish precious memories;

I will create new ones with the

breath that I pass unto your lips

as you open your eyes for seeing.


 
just one more breath.


 
one more breath. I can be your ventilator, your machine that

pumps life into your body. I can be the lifeline on your EKG

that only you and I can see. I can be your chair if you need to be wheeled a

thousand steps and more. I can be your pillow as you rest your

head resting peacefully

for the one I adore. Because I love you. And I am in love with you.

And I am designed to be part of you, designed to bring that life into you.

So if you just have that pure desire, the pure wish to stay just one moment

one more second, all the time in the world and nothing less-

  
just give me

  
one. more. breath.


 
-b.r.rivera

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