Breath

Have you ever had the feeling

that the world is too loud

So you scream

in an effort to counter it out

But it doesn't work, it can't

and your knees buckle, you fall down

Ears bleeding, eyes wet, heart torn,

as your body shuts down...

Then, finally, the world is not loud

Sure, they gawk and gaze

as you curl into yourself

Folding and falling and feeling numb

Suffocating from the lack of air in your lungs

Going from too loud to silence in a snap, all at once

takes a toll the more it happens,

because it always happens more than --

It just happens, and happens, and happens again

in a circular pattern, like this, with no real end

Until one morning, you wake up, and hear all the sounds

Of the world around you... but there's no need to drown it out

You hear the hum of electricity hidden behind your walls

The crows cawing and birds tweeting

and, damn it all, you hear everything

In the rise and fall

of the breath in the chest of who matters most of all