lungs

why nobody told me 

breathing is a privilege

which i owned already, 

but inhaling purified air

is luxuriously momentary

when you're gazing 

at the loss of your life. 

my chest doesn't hurt now

but reacts too delicate, 

catching colds fast, 

infecting bronchi faster, 

smoking heartbreaks the fastest. 

holding my breath on for six seconds

and chocking on the seventh one

could never decipher how much

deoxygenated my life is turning

while i'm imagining myself

on the hospital ventilator 

clutching white bedsheets 

tightly with my little pale hands, 

raising my chest so high

to inhale just an extra breath 

for blowing it straight into his lungs. 

lord, please do not save me, 

teach me the power of leaps of life 

lord, please ruin the silence 

between two breaths which 

i always endured for my ribs, 

lord, please pause

the moving wind for just a second, 

endanger my jammed lungs, 

abandon my compressed lungs. 

- chetna🌻