By Kyia Smith

My only way to breathe

Is to inhale the depth of the lyrics 

and to exhale all previous problems 

I feel everything release

And my body starts to feel like everything has been achieved

And for a moment, just a second

I’m floating endlessly in a dream

Eventually, the dream stops 

It is only then that I awake

To press the next button

For another moment, I begin to suffocate

It’s too close

The work, the problems, everything that haunts me 

It all closes in on me, and suddenly I’m claustrophobic

Everything breaks

The second that it stops, I go numb

I can’t feel the happiness, the regular doesn’t equate

The silences of their voices is so loud

When I walk through the hallways and can’t see them bow

Because the feeling of the breath gives me fresh happiness

And I wish that for me to breathe, would just be allowed

It may be distracting, because of what they want me to eat

For me to breathe, to sleep, everything on repeat

I swallow the information that they give me and my cycle should feel complete

Work for years struggling to make ends meet

And then die supposedly with satisfaction… and it is only then that I will cheat

To go back in time because I’m not satisfied with the way that I sat in my seat

Or the way that I didn’t win that game because I’m supposed to be the perfect athlete

Inhale exhale

It feels offbeat

To see things happen 

and still feel defeat

A miss

Uneven

My breath

A season

Music

Completion

Fulfillment

A reason