[a scribble]

[kaberett]

[content note: breathing, difficulty with, etc.]

In the spaces
                  between breaths
between heartbeats
             I am trapped
within the cage of my ribs, and
choked by the swelling spiking echoes of
my heart. In all this emptiness
it is poetry
            that reminds me how to breathe.

Comments

[liv]

I feel like I'm being really awful in responding to gorgeous poetry like this, but I would very much appreciate an advance mention that I'm about to read a poem about not being able to breathe. I know perfectly well it's metaphorical, but I'm having a bad breathing week literally and, um, my asthma has psychological triggers sometimes. I don't want to be one of those people who can't read anything emotive without immediately commenting to demand cuts and trigger warnings and making it All About Them. So I hope you won't take this as a criticism, just a request if you can bear to flag up this kind of thing?

[kaberett]

Thank you for asking, and I will try to remember for future. ♥ (It is... not entirely metaphorical. But that's just all the more reason to cut it.)

[liv]

Thank you for responding so graciously; I really do feel a bit of a jerk for that comment. And I'm sympathetic in a different way reading this as only partly metaphorical.

[kaberett]

Actually, the lesson for me here is that if before posting something I stop and think "hmm, should I maybe cut this?", the answer is always yes. You are not at all jerkish - thank you for taking care of yourself, and for letting me know how to take better care of you.

[birke]

That is a good lesson!