Breathing Holes

When I was a boy, I caught lightning bugs in Mason jars.

I punched breathing holes through the lid

with a nail and my father's hammer, certain I was       

merciful. Certain the tiny wounds in the metal

were enough. The jar would glow on my dresser all evening,

a constellation captured by small hands.

I would fall asleep watching green lanterns drift through

the darkness, their light blinking against the glass

like little hearts refusing to surrender. By morning

they were always dead. The holes were there.

The air had been there, but not enough.

And I would carry them outside in my guilty hands,

pouring their weightless bodies into the grass

where they should have been all along.

Years later, I learned a man can live that way too.

Not dead. Not living. Just surviving on whatever air

reaches him. A few breathing holes punched through steel.

A holiday divided by lawyers. A child waving from the driveway.

A photograph from a vacation you were never meant to take.

An empty side of the bed. An empty chair at dinner.

An empty house that no longer belongs to you.

They tell you divorce is separation. The word is too clean.

Too orderly. A better word is confiscation. The taking of things

you spent decades building. Your wife and best friend.

Your plans for growing old. The future version of yourself

you had already met a thousand times in your imagination.

You lose the house, because now you're starting over.

Another mortgage -- thirty years begins anew.

Another lifetime of payments for a life you never

intended to have. You lose mornings. You lose traditions.

You lose ordinary Tuesdays. You lose half the Christmases

and half the birthdays and half the moments

that once belonged entirely to you. To us. Even the dogs

looks confused, walking room to room searching for a world

that no longer exists. People say, at least you're free.

But freedom and survival are not the same thing.

A man pressing his mouth against a breathing hole

is not free. A lightning bug trapped in a jar is not free.

We are simply creatures trying to find enough air

to see another day. For a long time, I’ve lived inside that jar.

My face pressed against the metal. Breathing what

little I could. Watching the life I had built grow smaller

through the glass. Watching the future disappear

one flicker at a time. Waiting for someone to open the lid.

Waiting for mercy. Waiting for permission to fly.

Then one morning I remembered the lesson

those lightning bugs had been teaching me all along.

The holes were never the answer.

No matter how many you punched through the lid,

a prison remained a prison. The only kindness

was opening the jar. And maybe healing begins there.

Not when the air finally reaches you. Not when the

losses stop hurting. Not when the life you planned returns.

Because it never does. So now I carry my empty hands

through the widening dark. Not holding what was taken.

Not holding what was lost. Just learning again how to use

my wings. How to trust the night. How to breathe

without counting holes. How to fly without asking permission.