Exhale

One more breath, I tell myself, breathe deeply and you’ll feel better

One more breath and you’ll fix him

If you breathe everything you have into him,

Then maybe he’ll stop knocking the wind out of you

I’ve shed a thousand skins, I’ve taken thousands of breaths,

but no matter how hard I breathed, I couldn’t fix him

Some people are so broken,

You’ll run out of oxygen trying to make everything okay

So now I hold my breath

In hopes of meeting someone whose brokenness doesn’t need fixing

Wondering how many skins I’ll shed before we find each other

And whether or not I’ll recognize myself when we do