Ir manu draugu lokaa puikinjsh Alans. Vinjsh raksta runaajamaa vaarda dzeju.

Breathing

If you ever wish you didn’t forget that you were breathing.

If you have very little faith in fortune tellers, and even less in rear view mirrors,
then maybe we both just want to find people we can fart in front of,
people who don’t speak through filters like cigarettes.

And maybe we’ve both smoked only one first cigarette
and more than one “last” cigarette.
And maybe we both live in fear, the way fish live in water:
we breathe it, and we forget most of the time
that we can only move forward if we push against it.

But sometimes we remember,
and that’s why we’re here, on a coffee date,
sitting across from someone who is mostly a stranger,
but still hoping that their eyes,
or their hands or their words
will save your life, will say that they like you,
will say that they want you,
will say that we, we can’t give our hearts out whole
because we’ve both left too many pieces in too many people,
but, maybe,
we can at least each walk away with some small part of the other.

And you,
you will say nothing anyway,
knowing that one day, when you’re drinking or thinking too much,
you’ll remember this feeling
of wanting to hold someone but fearing to reach

because their eyes are one-way mirrors
and you can’t see what they see in you—
because maybe
you’ve ripped out too many pages of yourself for other people’s scrap books
and you don’t know if your spine holds together a story worth reading anymore.

I’ve tried to love someone else who was easier to love than myself,
so I know that sometimes today feels like an empty mailbox,
and you need a better reason to get out of bed than having no other choice.
Because instead of pushing silver dust our veins are just pumping this dark salty stuff
that will never see the light of day—
when we die, they’ll have us pickled, prettied up and placed on linen
before we even have a chance to stink.

But no matter how angry you are that most of this,
even most of this,
is just air,
remember that people are just waterfalls,
and we’re all falling toward the same thing.

Remember that sometimes leaves look like upsized golden confetti in sunlight
and trees stand up on their tip toes all day and all night
like toddlers trying to reach for something;
it only takes one beautiful thing
to make stepping out of your head today worth it.

So if I’ve ever watched you in a museum while you’re looking at a painting,
or if you spend less time in museums looking at paintings
than staring at the people who are looking at paintings,
you should know
that I want nothing more than to watch you step though all this empty space
and actually touch something beautiful, and hold on to it,
like it isn’t just the most obvious thing to do.

And it’s harder than it sounds. I know.
because I’ve been trying to try to
but every time I think I’ve found God, he melts on my nose like a snowflake
so I’ve been packing cold dirt in my mouth and wearing headphones
because I am too tired to talk anymore
and I can’t sleep to the sound of my own heartbeat
so sometimes it is just easier to have somebody else’s voice in my head.

But it’s amazing what silence can do.

And if you ever decide to put broken pieces back together,
I hope you at least fill the cracks in with gold.
It’s the broken places that make us beautiful,
and you should shine through them.

I’ve been throwing poems at the things that are far too far away for me to actually touch,
like you,

and keeping my eyes closed
so matter which way I walk
it always at least feels like I’m moving forward.

But, some days, I still stand still,
and rock on my rusty heels
and breathe,
letting this now take over
instead of reaching for the next one.

And you,

you are welcome to come breathe with me.

You are always welcome to breathe with me.