My heart beats,

I feel the silent joy of the world.

My memento mori,

Happens to be the very thing that keeps me alive.

One day I will die,

But I can say I lived,

And that will be enough hope for my soul.

breath is life life is hope

hope in life makes breathing easy.

While I breathe i am alive

hope is all we have when

the bombs fall

they say we have a set

no. of breaths in our life

i may be coming to the end

of mine

but, elsewhere.

hope is stifled by power

and capitalism gone amok

to meditate is to breathe

to breathe, is all we got.

i pray to my god that

those extinguished breaths

die with hope.

i fear not.

breathe breathe breathe.

thank god for a life

filled with hope.

"and loving kindness"

With every inhale, every gush of breath that enters my lungs,

I hope.

I hope for a night of peaceful sleep

that never seems to come.

I hope for a week with no drama, no disappointment,

but life always has its tricks.

And I hope to find someone who understands me.

Even in the worst times,

when I can't catch my breath,

I'm still hoping.

Hoping that this life doesn't leave me longing for more.

And everytime I exhale,

I find myself hoping that the people I've hurt recover.

I find myself wishing I could go back in time,

maybe get my best friend back,

undo all the wrong I did.

I find myself hoping that life gives me a chance to apologize,

to take back what I said that day.

All I hope for is that everything goes back to normal.

And with everything in me,

at all times of the day and the night,

I hope that someday, I'll be happy again.

i moved to south carolina

reluctantly, with nothing

but my degree and a few

prescription bottles

i told my psychiatrist

in august that i stopped

feeling real. my fingers

and toes went numb

sometimes they felt like

they were filled with TV static

the air was colder in virginia

i could feel it in my nostrils

every time i returned

the first breath felt like

waking up in a haze

sweaty sheets, after months

of an ongoing nightmare

sweet relief when you realize

you’re in your old bedroom

but every time i come back

to a place they want me

to call home. i stop feeling

real at all. the air is suffocating

and dum spero, spiro.

ergo, ego non iam spiro.

The sums of all processes

The chemistry, the electricity

The bases and acidity

Warm me up to you

The thoughts that whir

That collide and careen apart

Falling into vectors of sorts

To warm me up for you

Temperatures rise

Exchanges will smother

Our breaths into each other

In the warmth that comes from you

We live and breathe as one

A bellows in and a bellows out

Hissing the sounds of hope throughout

Boiled and spilt warmly over two

"It's not a uniquely human condition."

Two men sit on the same side of a booth in a busy pub. If anyone cared, some would wonder if they were lovers.

The man who spoke brought no parka, despite freezing weather. He wears an immaculate bespoke suit. It almost swallows light, so dark is the black on black. He is regally pale in contrast, as if the warmth of the sun is a tale whispered by fairies.

His companion, leaning as far onto the wall as he can, is ruddy with drink. Even so, he is aware, sharp, focused.

Afraid.

"Come again?" he stammers.

The elegant man smiles like a rattlesnake.

"Hope. Hope is not a uniquely human condition."

"How so?"

"Take dogs, for example. You think it's love in their eyes when they stare at the dinner table? No. It's optimism. Begging for whatever scraps master will throw them."

"I see."

"Do you see you're the dog?"

"Who's the master?"

"Whom do you serve?"

"...I work at Sainsbury's, mate."

The man in the suit laughs, and the temperature in the pub drops. Winter's chill settles into the warm public house.

"Did you study Latin in school?"

"I remember a class, but nothing stuck."

The pale man calls for another round.

"*Dum spiro spero*." Two pints of Kronenbourg land on the table and the server quickly disappears. He's careful not to touch the man on the outside of the booth's seat, but he can't say why. "While I breathe, I hope."

"I like that."

"Breathing, or hoping?"

"Both."

"Abandon one, and you'll abandon the other."

The scared man doesn't know what to say, so he drinks.

"Do you know why I order ale when I take these little walks topside?"

"Topside?"

"Among you mud-fucking monkeys. His favorite pets. His dogs. Only, your dogs are actually dogs, so I think you have the better of it."

"Mate, I'm just trying to have a pint. Never owned a dog, nor fucked a monkey."

The pale man laughs again; mugs on the table frost over.

"I like you, Oliver."

"Ollie. Dad was Oliver."

"Oh, I know him."

"Knew him?"

"Know."

"He was a right cunt."

"Is."

"What're you on about, anyway?"

The suited man swirls a delicate index finger in his pint. "I order ale because He made wine." Bright yellow lager turns into black stout.

The drunk doesn't believe his eyes, so he shuts them.

"Spirans erit cupidum memoria, Ollie."

"Cupid's memory?"

"What would you give to keep breathing? To prevent breath from being a fond memory?"

For the first time, Ollie looks into his guest's eyes. He sees a beautiful creature who looks like a man, but doesn't know beauty. True fear is lead inside him; even beatings taken as a child from Oliver the elder didn't weigh like this moment.

"Mate," he whispers, voice tight and chest hollow, "not much. To you? Nothing."

"Do you know who I am?"

"I can guess your name."

The devil laughs and everyone shivers.

Why consider a 2.5-hour bus ride at dawn for a 2000-foot ascent?

We, bound to desks as marketers and creatives, seemed ill-suited for such trials.

"It'll be fun," they assured.

"A grand adventure," the seasoned hiker among us claimed.

Yet, halfway up, confronted by a daunting slope, I hesitated. Ahead, some advanced. Behind, others waited.

I paused, recalling past hurdles: the self-doubt of youth, academic trials, career gambles. Within those memories, I found a stubborn grit.

Dum spiro spero. While I breathe, I hope.

With resolve, I gripped the rock and climbed.

Breathe.

I take a deep breath, right now. This very second.

Because I am filled with such fucking rage and anger.

That I finally find a moment of lucidity.

And the words flow out of me in a way that makes sense,

and helps me process

and understand the mess.

And I hit copy and paste.

Just in case

The very thing inspiring me to write

Failed me.

And failed it did.

Maybe it was my fault,

for exploding in a tiny window labeled "bio",

for putting my energy into that moment

into something not intended

for such a sentence.

Oh well, I must take a breathe. Let the anger settle.

Learn from this.

control v

Dum spiro spero - that's what replaced the prose,

the very words

that helped me rise to this occasion.

Dum spiro spero - While I breathe, I hope

Well, I hope to never make that mistake again.

Rising from ashes, the boy drew himself upwards like the air from lava trails, still hot.

Eyes closed, he sang in a clear shrill voice a mountain folk song he had grown up hearing long before the volcano did anything but smoke.

And around him, the trees seemed to awaken, bending their heads towards the boy and one another in appreciation. As the song drifted through their branches, they carried the sound between one another, and nodded. They fiddled with the echo of his melody up over the valley and into the river. There, the marmots looked up from their dam and paused. It was its familiarity, like the promise that bygone times would be bygone no more, that made them pause, made them look over the mountain expectantly.

And the boy, alone in the whirl of died out fires, went on singing, telling himself that someone somewhere really was listening.

There is somehing sleazy about hope. Creeping up inside in spite of all attempts to deaden the neves. Like a phantom limb. An unquenchable thist. Hope is waiting on an answer that has yet to be imagined. It is freedom in belief of something better. An arangement one makes on a gamble. Putting everything on the line again and again. Hope is waking up to a new day and smiling. Again and again. Like a nervous tic, it reappears when you least expect it. Something you can't ignore and are sure to never forget.