to breathe

i.

Clear and cold morning. Shivers of the beginnings of spring. Hints of sun breathe warmth into the still masses of snow, and they run into water on the paths.

The sun touches my cheek. I close my eyes and
breathe
shot of oxygen, infinitesimal moment of clarity.

A brief eternal silence and I am swimming in nothingness. I open my eyes and watch the trees sway in the wind.
This is why I am alive, I think.

ii.

Frigid. Virus colonizing soft tissue, clawing at my throat. I walk slow and gasp.

It seems that everyone is breathing, and I am not. Everyone runs on the impatient fuels of passion, breathing deep and fast. All of their energy runs into the search for the sublime, wringing drips of joy from each existence as if their throats parched as mine. And still they parch. I gasp.

Is this how to live? Am I missing this?

Every moment forced to meaning. Each iteration, permutation, combination of dust, stars, organelles, joints, and shadows shimmering with the sacred, a blast of overwhelming importance.

I am too tired to feel. Virus robbing me of this life.

iii.

A dear friend writes to me. She is not tired like me, but exhausted. In her trumpet voice:

and on its own accord, without your drear and worrying
this condition called existence
will die.

I breathe, and there is nothing. I open my eyes and cry.
Peace is necessary. When the blank sky of breath opens up above me I feel complete. But somehow still, in the emptiness before me, I want to rise above and stab the canvas of white with destructive color.

Just for something to look at.