throats

Strangulation (noun, verb form, in the infinitive: to strangle)

to obstruct seriously or fatally the normal breathing of [redacted]

to suppress or hinder the rise, expression, or growth of [redacted]

to stifle

Air

Air?

Oxygen flows through our bodies, through our nose, our lungs, our alveoli, our capillaries, through ventricles and atriums, and through our bloodstreams.

Through our hearts

Home is where the heart is. That’s what they say. A place to feel warm, safe, comfortable, secure, loved. Where the air is crisp, warm, sweet.

But what happens if the air, that vital, life giving, that traverses places deep and unexplored

Vast and unknown

Miles and miles of systems stretching far beyond your wildest imagination

is gone

gone like the beat of a butterfly wing, gone like a dandelion seed floating lazily in the wind, gone like the warmth of a summer’s day, gone like the toys you packed away, gone like the peace in your sleep, gone like your father’s back in the doorway, gone like the light in your mother’s eyes (out out! Brief candle… life’s but a walking shadow)

you end up restless. you can’t breathe. you’re a wild animal. you beat against the bars of your cell, you are the caged bird and you sing desperately for someone to hear only to be met with silence.

the air is thick like poison

you wrench open your desperate and howling maw, creaking and breaking open like an old memory left to fester, to take a long drink of the air, of the atmosphere, of the universe

long, grueling, slithering like slime, sloshing like sewage, sinking, permeating, all those deep, unknown places you thought long left abandoned

you breathe

you are stifled

disease (noun, adjective: diseased)

a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of part or all of an organism, and that is not due to any external injury

Totus mundus agit histrionem (all the world’s a playhouse)

masks

throats

does the world see the disease? The illness? the deep, sticky, almost decadent filth layering your innermost worlds

or do they see the mask? The one you wear so tightly around your face that it presses your throat and strangles you

the mask, the marionette, the puppet master’s strings that hold your head up high, and keep your miserable feet dragging along the ground at the behest of others

peel it off

peel it away

see what lies underneath in those, dark, unexplored places

(your smile lights up your eyes, it’s like watching a flower bloom)

(you’re beautiful, i’m just stating the facts)

(you deserve to know you’re loved, and wanted)

(we love you too)

And suddenly

The air is

.

.